C Diff spurs infection action

Link: Osprey Media. - The Sault Star - Ontario, CA.

Hospitals in general, and Sault Area Hospital in particular, are much safer places than they were a year ago, and one of Canada's leading infection control experts partly credits that to the hard lessons SAH officials learned from the deadly Clostridium difficile outbreak. "Sault Area Hospital has come an amazingly long way in this experience," said Dr. Michael Gardam, director of infection prevention and control at the University Health Network of three Toronto hospitals, in a telephone interview Thursday. Gardam was brought in last fall after more than 50 patients were identified as having come down with the virulent NAP-1 strain of the intestinal bacterium, linked to outbreaks in Quebec that are blamed for some 2,000 deaths in 2003 and '04. Over the following several months, SAH implemented all 29 recommendations Gardam made to minimize infections, including a costly housekeeping regimen.