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When you're in the hospital, you can feel assured that we take all necessary precautions to prevent the risk of hospital-induced infections or issues, such as ventilator-associated pneumonia, central line infections, or never events. 

The following acronyms are used throughout these pages:  ELMC/Exempla Lutheran Medical Center, ESJH/Exempla Saint Joseph Hospital, EGSMC/Exempla Good Samaritan Medical Center.

Central Line (CL) Infection

Central venous catheters (CVCs), or Central Lines, are being used increasingly for both inpatients and outpatients to provide long-term access to veins. Because CVCs penetrate the skin, they make infection with bacteria and/or fungi possible. Infection may spread to the bloodstream where it can cause changes to the blood flow, harm organs and perhaps even lead to death.

Nationally, 48% of ICU patients have central venous catheters, accounting for 15 million central-venous-catheter days per year in ICUs. Studies of catheter-related bloodstream infections that take into account the severity of patients' underlying illnesses suggest that mortality attributed to these infections is between 4 and 20 percent, which means an estimated 500 to 4,000 patients die annually in the United States because of bloodstream infections.

Exempla care providers use the Central Line Bundle, a group of practices based on the best current research and designed to prevent infections, for patients with intravascular central catheters. Those practices, when implemented together, result in better outcomes for patients than when each practice is implemented individually. The key components of the Central Line Bundle are:

• Hand hygiene, which means strict compliance with hand washing
• Maximal barrier precautions upon insertion, which are the same precautions used for surgical procedures
• Chlorhexidine skin antisepsis, which has proven to be a better skin antiseptic than other solutions
• Optimal catheter site selection with the subclavian vein, a site less prone to infection, as the preferred site for non-tunneled catheters
• Daily review of line necessity with prompt removal of unnecessary lines.

How are we doing?

Our CL rates are defined as the number of CL cases divided by the number of catheter line days multiplied by1000 as well as the actual number of occurrences. Exempla's goal at each of its hospitals is to have fewer incidents, so a lower score indicates better performance. By 2012, our goal is to be in the top 5% of hospitals in the country for CL rates, which means having a CL rate of 0 or no occurrences.

Methicillin Resistant Staph Aureus (MRSA) Infection Rate

What is MRSA?

MRSA is a bacterial infection which has developed resistance to some antibiotics.  It is a nationally recognized type of infection that is preventable.  It is important to monitor MRSA rates to determine of our rates change due to quality improvements.  This is measured as the number of infections per 1000 patient days.

How are we doing? 

Contact Us

If you have any questions now about these measures and our performance, please contact: Exempla Healthcare's Care Team.