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The New Mexico Department of Health is leading the Healthcare-Associated Infections Advisory Committee, as established by a bill signed by Gov. Bill Richardson. It mandates committee membership, requires members to establish standards for reporting hospital-associated infections, trains hospitals to ensure proper reporting, and develops and distributes findings to the public. The committee will identify specific infections and indicators that hospitals will report.

It then will guide hospitals with ICUs to report on two measures: central-line associated bloodstream infections and influenza vaccination rates of their healthcare workers. The committee will consider additional indicators over time.

“This bill furthers the work that we began last year with our voluntary pilot project involving six hospitals,” said Health Secretary Alfredo Vigil, MD. “The goal of this work is to prevent and control healthcare-associated infections so patients receive better care.”

Participating hospitals are University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center in Albuquerque, Gerald Champion Regional Medical Center in Alamogordo, Heart Hospital of New Mexico in Albuquerque, Memorial Medical Center in Las Cruces, San Juan Regional Medical Center in Farmington, and Presbyterian Hospital in Albuquerque.