Patricia Stone, PhD awarded $362,331 funding from the Blue Shield of California Foundation to conduct a research project entitled, "Understanding the Changing Infection Control Practitioner (ICP) Role"

Patricia Stone, PhD has been awarded $362,331 funding from the Blue Shield of California Foundation to conduct a research project entitled, "Understanding the Changing Infection Control Practitioner (ICP) Role". Co-investigators from CUSON include Elaine Larson, PhD and Haomiao Jia, PhD. The research involves healthcare associated infections (HAI), which are a major source of morbidity and mortality despite the fact that they are often preventable. In response to these dynamic changes, the California Healthcare-Associated Infection Prevention Initiative (CHAIPI) project has been developed. In CHAIPI, there are three cohorts of California hospitals. Cohort 1 is 9 hospitals that joined an educational collaborative and adopted technology for HAI surveillance; Cohort 2 is made up of hospitals new to CHAIPI in 2008 that will join the collaborative and begin to use this technology (15 as of 5/30/08, more are expected); Cohort 3 is the hospitals new to CHAIPI that have elected to join the educational collaborative but will not be using the surveillance technology (n = 25). Anecdotal evidence from ICPs in Cohort 1 has suggested a role transformation for the ICP with more time for education and an increased team approach. The purposes of the 2-year research project proposed in this application are to understand the changing role of ICPs and evaluate CHAIPI's impact on the ICP role as well as the HAI rates. The survey will build upon one used in a funded NIH study entitled, "Prevention of Nosocomial Infections and Cost Effectiveness".