Hospitals in pursuit of excellence

Increasing Compliance with Pneumonia and Flu Vaccine Screening

In 2008, Albany Medical Center was one of 18 regional referral neonatal intensive care units to adopt central line insertion and maintenance bundles, and in 2009 agreed to use checklists to monitor maintenance-bundle adherence. Its NICU's central line-associated blood stream infection rate prior to starting this initiative in 2008 was 9.4 infections per 1,000 central line days not the worst in New York State, but not the best either. AMC's NICU achieved a dramatic reduction in CLABSIs in 2009 and a sustained reduction in 2010.