Katzman, Hale and others collaborate on American Journal of Infection Control article

Dr. Michael Katzman, professor of medicine, microbiology and immunology, and Cory Hale, infectious diseases clinical pharmacy specialist, along with several co-authors across Penn State College of Medicine and Penn State Health recently published an article in the American Journal of Infection Control.

This article highlights the collaborative efforts of the Clostridioides difficile (C. difficile) prevention team at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in reducing the incidence of C. difficile infection (CDI), the impact of which was sustained over a 3-year period. Following the implementation of a simple admission question by nurses to identify cases present on admission and a 2-step testing algorithm to decrease the diagnosis of new CDI, cases classified as health care-associated decreased from approximately 160 in each of the preceding 3 years to fewer than 65 in the each of the subsequent 3 years.

This work was a joint effort involving members of Hershey Medical Center’s Antimicrobial Stewardship Program team and the Departments of Nursing, Quality, Infection Prevention and Clinical Pathology; Department of Public Health Sciences at the College of Medicine; and Penn State Health’s Information Services and Center for Quality Innovation.

Katzman and Hale are members of the the Department of Medicine‘s Division of Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology. Katzman and Hale also serve as director and co-director, respectively, of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program.

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