HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius recently announced the availability of up to $9 million in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to state survey agencies in 43 states.

The announcement was intended to offset or reduce health care-associated infections (HAIs) acquired in same-day or stand-alone surgical centers. HAIs are infections some patients acquire when they are in a health care setting such as a hospital or outpatient clinic.

"Because of the Recovery Act, millions of patients who go to stand-alone surgical centers will have greater assurance that they won't come home with a new infection," said Sebelius. "Residents in these 43 states will continue to see the benefits from the Recovery Act not only by addressing health care associated infections, but by putting people to work to solve an important issue and improve the quality of life for Americans."

"Healthcare-Associated Infections kill nearly 100,000 people and add an extra $30 billion in healthcare costs every year. But with a little bit of knowledge, and some extra effort, much of that can be prevented. I'm glad to see these funds going to help put people to work combating this tragedy around the country," said Congressman Dave Obey (D-WI), the Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, who was a lead author of the Recovery Act and has been an outspoken advocate for efforts to reduce HAIs.

Accredited facilities are surveyed by CMS-approved private accrediting organizations. As part of the new initiative, surveyors in the 43 states will survey approximately 1,300 ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs) across the nation, one-third of the more than 3,800 non-accredited ASCs across the country during the next 12 months. State surveyors will employ a new CMS survey process for ASCs that uses an infection control tool developed in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 

HAI outbreaks in outpatient settings continue to occur according to the CDC. In several ASC-related communicable disease outbreaks, failure to employ very basic infection control practices were implicated, leading CMS to identify this as an area for additional oversight.