Key takeaways:
- The Healthcare An infection Management Practices Advisory Committee issued steering on the prevention and management of well being care-associated infections.
- In an announcement, HHS mentioned HICPAC was terminated as a result of it was “pointless.”
The CDC has terminated an advisory committee chargeable for issuing federal steering on the prevention and management of well being care-associated infections and the unfold of antimicrobial resistance, HHS confirmed to Healio.
The choice to disband the Healthcare An infection Management Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC) was based mostly on President Trump’s government order to scale back the federal workforce, HHS communications director Andrew Nixon instructed Healio in an electronic mail Wednesday.
The manager order instructed advisors to determine “pointless authorities entities and federal advisory committees that must be terminated on grounds that they’re pointless,” Nixon mentioned.
“CDC is dedicated to sustaining the best requirements of an infection management and can proceed its mission to guard public well being and collaborate carefully with well being care professionals and companions,” he mentioned.
NBC Information was first to report that the committee had been eradicated.
‘Crucial asset’
Established by the CDC in 1991, HICPAC was charged with updating tips and coverage statements on infectious illness prevention in United States hospitals, in line with the CDC.
An infection prevention and management professionals referred to as on the CDC and HHS to reinstate the committee.
“HICPAC is a crucial asset to the nation’s public well being infrastructure. It supplies evidence-based steering that immediately informs federal well being care requirements and protects each sufferers and well being care employees throughout hospitals, outpatient clinics and prolonged care amenities,” the Affiliation for Professionals in An infection Management and Epidemiology (APIC) and Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) mentioned in a joint assertion.
“The choice to terminate HICPAC creates a preventable hole in nationwide preparedness and response capability, leaving well being care amenities with out well timed, evidence-based and expert-driven suggestions at a time when threats from rising pathogens and antimicrobial resistance are on the rise,” APIC and SHEA mentioned.
On the SHEA Spring convention final week, attendees expressed concern about the way forward for committees and packages considered important for sufferers and suppliers, together with HICPAC.
SHEA President and HICPAC member David J. Weber, MD, MPH, affiliate chief medical officer at UNC Medical Middle, instructed Healio in an interview Wednesday that “there isn’t any different federal panel that may do that work.”
“{Many professional} organizations, together with SHEA, do tips however the imprimatur of the CDC, usually, carries extra weight than any single skilled group, significantly with regards to having constant suggestions for explicit exercise throughout all of the completely different states and their public well being departments,” he mentioned. “They give the impression of being to the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention.”
‘We’re actually in limbo’
HICPAC normally met 3 times per yr to craft suggestions for the prevention of well being care-associated infections in hospitals, nursing houses and different varieties of medical amenities, along with different month-to-month conferences and communications, in line with SHEA officers.
One other HICPAC member, Connie Steed, MSN, RN, CIC, FAPIC, mentioned communication between the CDC and members of the committee ceased in February, which included the cancelation of scheduled conferences. Weber and Steed mentioned they have been notified by electronic mail final week that the committee was being terminated, which was then confirmed on a bunch telephone name final Friday.
In response to Weber, communication between the CDC {and professional} organizations has been “severely handicapped” in latest months. He and Steed each mentioned that APIC and SHEA are engaged on grassroots campaigns urging members to succeed in out to elected officers in help of federal advisory committees, along with brainstorming potential options for the top of federal committees providing medical steering.
“We actually are in limbo,” Steed mentioned. “I believe it’s regarding for clinicians and well being care organizations to not have that understanding that there’s a HICPAC or an skilled panel that helps public well being and the functioning of the CDC that may give them perception into frontline medical follow and what the present proof in science is saying that we have to do.”
References:
For extra info:
Connie Steed, MSN, RN, CIC, FAPIC, may be reached at connie.steed@outlook.com.
David Weber, MD, MPH, may be reached at dweber@unch.unc.edu.
Sources/Disclosures
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Healio Interviews
Disclosures:
Weber studies being a former member of HICPAC and receiving grant funds from the CDC. Steed studies being a former member of HICPAC.
