Stopping empiric antibiotics early nearly tripled antibiotic-free days in neutropenic fever, and 5-day oseltamivir prophylaxis matched 10 days in hospital exposures.
|Videos|January 14, 2018
Cost-Benefit of Investing in Launderable Mattress Covers to Prevent CDIs
Author(s)Contagion® Editorial Staff
Edmond Hooker, MD, DrPH, discusses the cost benefit of investing in launderable hospital mattress covers to prevent CDIs.
Advertisement
Edmond Hooker, MD, DrPH, professor, Health Services Administration at Xavier University, and emergency physician at the University of Cincinnati, discusses the cost-benefit of investing in launderable hospital mattress covers to prevent CDIs.
Interview Transcript (modified slightly for readability):
“If you look at the average Clostridium difficile infection (CDI), the average cost is in the $34,000 range, and so, if you just prevent one infection, you paid for more than 1 Environmental Services (EVS) worker. If you prevent 2, 5, 10—we’ve prevented about 20 CDIs in the one published study that we had with using the launderable hospital mattress cover, which is another way to produce clean. You can produce clean in a lot of ways; this is just another way. But if you do that, it pays for the technology or for the personnel. And so, it makes a lot of sense, but it’s an upfront cost and I hear people talk about the soft cost. ‘Oh, that’s a soft cost.’ No, it’s not it; it’s a human being that you didn’t kill—first of all. Now, the government is starting to put in penalties for increased CDIs, so maybe there will be some financial pressure on the hospitals to go ahead and say, ‘Listen, we’ve got to clean better.’”
Advertisement
Related to this article
In an ECOSPOR III analysis, all-cause hospitalization by week 4 fell to 3.4% with fecal microbiota spores vs 16.1% with placebo in recurrent C difficile infection.
Karen B. Jacobson, MD, MPH, of Kaiser Permanente Northern California, presented data at IDWeek 2026 showing 58.2% of children younger than five years exposed to active hepatitis B in the home were exposed by someone other than their birth mother, a risk maternal screening alone would miss under the CDC’s revised birth dose recommendation.
In the phase 3b ENCORE trial, adding amikacin liposome inhalation suspension (ALIS) to azithromycin and ethambutol significantly improved culture conversion in newly diagnosed MAC lung disease, while treatment-emergent amikacin (2.2%) and macrolide (1.1%) resistance stayed rare. Kevin Winthrop, MD, provides insights around the study.
In the phase 2 RePreve trial, Lumen Bioscience’s investigational oral biologic LMN-201 plus standard antibiotics achieved global cure in 83.3% of patients with C difficile infection vs 36.4% with placebo, and cut recurrence sixfold (9.1% vs 55.6%) with no drug-related serious adverse events.
Projected disease burden from declining childhood vaccine coverage shows increases in vaccine-preventable diseases. Benjamin Lopman, PhD, provides insights on how VaxImpactMap works and the potential long-term disease consequences of decreased immunization rates.
UTI guidelines are moving away from complicated or uncomplicated infections to localized or systemic classification terminologies. Guidelines author Zachary Nelson, PharmD, MPH, BCIDP, provides further insights on the changes including applying antibiograms, potential costs, and whether clinicians will embrace these new classifications.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Trending on Contagion Live
1
Cefiderocol-Xeruborbactam Active Against Carbapenem-Resistant Bacteria
2
Pritelivir Cuts Hospital Days in Refractory HSV in Phase 3 PRIOH-1
3
Zelicapavir Shortens RSV Symptoms Despite Missing Primary End Point
4
Ensitrelvir PEP Eases Symptom Severity in COVID-19 Breakthrough Cases
5