On September 26, 2008, hospitals were required by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care to report publicly on their Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) rates. C. difficile is the first of several infectious diseases to be subject to province-wide reporting requirements for Ontario hospitals in coming months.

St. Joseph’s Health Care, London has posted these rates to its public website, and will continue to update these on a monthly basis, on our infection rates page.

The rates that we are reporting include:

• Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) infection (CDI)
• Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)
• Vancomycin-resistant Enterococci (VRE)
• Surgical site infection prevention
• Hand hygiene compliance among health care workers
• Rates of ventilator-associated pneumonia - St. Joseph’s is not be included in the public reporting for VAP as this indicator is specific to critical care or intensive care units, which St. Joseph's does not have.
• Rates of central line infections- St. Joseph’s is not be included in the public reporting for CLI as this indicator is specific to critical care or intensive care units, which St. Joseph's does not have.

At St. Joseph's, our infection prevention and control practices, and environmental cleaning practices, are aligned with the Provincial Infectious Diseases Advisory Committee (PIDAC) best practices documents, as well as the Ministry’s “Just Clean Your Hands” program ( http://www.justcleanyourhands.ca ). Independent of these initiatives, along with our partner London Health Sciences Centre, we have also formed a Hand Hygiene Improvement Project Steering Committee, to provide direction on development, implementation and evaluation of an effective, sustainable hand hygiene program in our hospitals, which will further support our efforts to continually improve the care we deliver.