Introduction
OBRA 1987 regulations mandate that all skilled nursing facilities must have an Infection Control program. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services states that infections are a significant source of morbidity and mortality for nursing home residents and account for up to half of all nursing home resident transfers to hospitals.
It is estimated that an average of 1.6 to 3.8 infections per resident occur annually in nursing homes. According to CMS, infections result in an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 hospital admissions per year at an estimated cost of $673 million to $2 billion annually. When a nursing home resident is hospitalized with a primary diagnosis of infection, the death rate can reach as high as 40 percent.
This manual gives information and forms to implement a complete facility infection control program. It includes the latest CMS regulations, a job description, and information on coding infections on the MDS 3.0. Included in the forms are policies and procedures and inservices for training staff in infection prevention practices. The auditing and tracking forms will facilitate the task of preventing and monitoring infections in the facility.
Forms in the manual comply with the change to MDS version 3.0 and with all of the federal regulations and guidelines updated during the past year.
All of the forms and care plans in the book are included on the CD so they can be saved to a computer whenever needed. By adding or deleting entries, the forms and care plans can be made resident specific.
Forms on the CD are not numbered. Forms in the manual are numbered for the sake of convenience.