Donald Wright, MD, MPH, of the HHS (second from left), honors representatives of 10 hospitals recognized for dramatically reducing healthcare-acquired infections. The ATS and its sister critical care societies were instrumental in the HHS’s decision to establish the award and recommended the recipients.

On Sunday, during the ATS Awards Session, Donald Wright, MD, MPH, the deputy assistant secretary for healthcare quality at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, presented awards to 10 hospitals that have achieved wide-scale reductions of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). The hospitals were recommended by critical care experts from the Critical Care Societies Collaborative comprising the American Thoracic Society, American Association of Critical-Care Nurses, American College of Chest Physicians and the Society of Critical Care Medicine.

“Each year in the U.S., there are 2 million HAIs in hospitals,” Dr. Wright said. “These awards are part of our effort to make hospital care safer, less expensive and more reliable.”

The hospitals are among 37 that HHS and the Critical Care Societies Collaborative are recognizing for eliminating/reducing ventilator-associated pneumonias or central line-associated blood stream infections.

The hospitals are Baylor University Medical Center; Houston; Cook Children’s Medical Center, Fort Worth, Texas; Norman (Okla.) Regional Health System; St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital, Houston; Highland Hospital, Rochester, N.Y.; North-Shore-LIJ, Long Island, N.Y.; Rochester General, New York; Rome Memorial, New York; Stony Brook University, New York; and St. Catherine of Siena Medical Center, New York.

“These hospitals are vanguard organizations,” said Dr. Wright, who also noted that those recognized were chosen from among 250 applicants. “It’s rare that preventive initiatives yield such rapid results.”