WIHI - A Podcast from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement

Date: April 9, 2015 Featuring: Dale Gerding, MD, Professor of Medicine, Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine; Research Physician, Edward Hines Jr. VA Hospital Jason Leitch, PhD, MPH, National Clinical Director, Healthcare Quality, Scottish Government Alan Whippy, MD, Medical Director of Quality and Patient Safety, Permanente Medical Group, Northern California Don Goldmann, MD, Chief Medical and Scientific Officer, Institute for Healthcare Improvement What was your reaction when you heard the news that Clostridium difficile (C. diff) infected far more people in 2011 than first reported by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)? Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine at the end of February, the CDC updated its own prior calculations to report that the burden of infection in 2011 was 80% higher than previously stated. In total an estimated 453,000 people were afflicted with C. diff in 2011; C. diff was a factor in some 29,000 deaths.   Our reaction here was,