Engaging Local Health Departments in Healthcare-Associated Infection Prevention

Brief Summary:
Local health departments continue to face challenges with outbreaks of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs), particularly in ambulatory and long-term care settings. As patients and healthcare delivery shift from acute care hospitals to these community-based settings, there is increasing concern about the emergence of multidrug-resistant organisms and other HAIs in such settings and attention to the role of local health departments in preventing these infections.  While state health departments have become increasingly involved in measuring the burden of HAIs and using data to inform prevention strategies, the present involvement and potential role of local health departments remain unclear. This roundtable session will briefly describe a local health department HAI demonstration project that the National Association of County and City Health Officials initiated to explore the potential role of local health departments in HAI prevention. This session will highlight those experiences to demonstrate and facilitate a discussion on how local health departments have responded to HAI outbreaks in ambulatory and long-term care settings and engaged in state HAI prevention activities. In addition, this session will elicit state and local perspectives on existing and potential opportunities and roles for local health departments in HAI prevention and identify steps for leveraging those opportunities and expanding upon those roles.