Each year, tens of thousands of people become ill from clostridium difficile, often called C. diff. C.diff is a bacterium that can cause symptoms that range from diarrhea to life-threatening swelling or inflammation of the colon. The illness most often affects older adults in hospitals or staying in long-term care facilities, and after receiving antibiotics.
SSM St. Joseph Health Center and SSM St. Joseph Hospital West in Lake Saint Louis have been sited by The Joint Commission (TJC), a health care accreditation organization, as using a best practice in the reduction of hospital-based cases of C. diff. Infections have been reduced from 3.5 cases per thousand to just 0.5 cases per thousand.
TJC surveyors weren’t the only ones impressed with the practice. The achievement was featured in the article “Driving Down C. diff Infections,” in the publication Hospitals in Pursuit of Excellence: A Guide to Superior Performance Improvement published by the American Hospital Association Quality Center.
SSM St. Joseph Health Center also was listed in the March 2010 issue of Consumer Reports as a top performer. In 2008, the year the data was calculated, your new St. Joseph Health Center had zero infections – one of only three in the state.