• Ahead of anticipated fall surges in COVID-19, flu, and RSV, review the following recommended infection prevention and control measures:
  • CDC Preventing Transmission of Viral Respiratory Pathogens in Healthcare Settings
  • Viral Respiratory Pathogens Toolkit for Nursing Homes 

• Additional Resources: 
  • Check out VDH’s Respiratory Illnesses Communication Toolkit
  • Stay up to date with the latest respiratory illness trends on the VDH Respiratory Disease Data webpage 

💡Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General Report: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Should Take Additional Actions to Help Hospitals Prepare for a Future Emerging Infectious Disease Outbreak 

💡Updated CDC Measles Infection Prevention and Control Recommendations and Resources 

💡Product Recall due to Burkholderia cepacia Contamination 

• As the CMS Quality Innovation Network–Quality Improvement Organization (QIN-QIO) for the Mid-Atlantic region including Virginia, the collaborative team of IPRO, Healthcentric Advisors, and Qlarant draws on over 40 years of experience to provide tailored technical assistance, data driven insights, and clinical expertise that support healthcare providers in making meaningful, sustainable improvements.
• Select hospitals, nursing homes, and outpatient clinical practices have been identified by CMS to participate in the 13th Scope of Work (SOW), a five-year quality improvement initiative which focuses on advancing healthcare quality and outcomes in CMS’s priority areas. The patient safety and harm reduction projects will address prevention of HAIs, adverse drug events, falls, and pressure injuries.
• The VDH HAI Program is proud to partner with the Mid-Atlantic QIN-QIO Team on this CMS-funded initiative. Providers who receive an invitation are encouraged to join and take advantage of this opportunity to improve care and performance. 
• To learn more about the QIO, visit their website or contact the team at QIN-QIOR2@ipro.org. 

💡Update on Mpox in Virginia 

• The Reliability-Adjusted Ranking dashboard is now available to all acute care hospitals as of June 21^st. Information about the dashboard can be found on the adjusted ranking metric (ARM) analysis resources webpage.  
• Individual hospitals receive a ranking compared to all other acute care hospitals for the same year.  
  • Annual facility-specific reliability-adjusted rankings are based on the ARM.  
  • Lower ranking percentile is better. Example: If your ranking is 9, your hospital is doing better than 91% of facilities after accounting for overall exposure.  
  • Available for central line-associated bloodstream infections, catheter-associated urinary tract infections, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus laboratory-identified events, C. difficile laboratory-identified events, and surgical site infections following abdominal hysterectomy and colon surgery.  

✴️ Cuppa Tea with an IP. A weekly live chat with VDH infection preventionists (IPs) and experts to address your infection prevention and control questions. Register once to attend any session as needed.

✴️ Vitamin IPC. Subscribe to the monthly Vitamin IPC bulletin by VIPTA for essential resources and access to events to enhance frontline healthcare personnel’s infection prevention and control training. 

✴️ Clinician Letter. This letter is emailed to all currently licensed healthcare professionals in the Commonwealth to communicate important updates. Access archived letters at Clinician Letters - Clinicians (virginia.gov). 

✴️ Healthcare Professional Newsletter. Subscribe to HCP monthly newsletter for updates on therapeutics, COVID-19, and upcoming activities. Access it and archives at Healthcare Professional Newsletter - Clinicians (virginia.gov).