The Public Health Response to CRE in Wisconsin

Today, on CDC's Safe Healthcare blog, Gwen Borlaug, MPH, CIC, Coordinator of the Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAI) Prevention Program in the Division of Public Health at the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, discusses the public health response to Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) in Wisconsin.

The post is the third in a three-part series related to CDC’s August 2015 Vital Signs: Making Health Care Safer: Stop Spread of Antibiotic Resistance.
Estimates in the Vital Signs report show that national infection control and antibiotic stewardship efforts led by federal agencies, healthcare facilities, and public health departments could prevent 619,000 antibiotic-resistant and C. difficile infections and save 37,000 lives over five years. While the coordinated approach this Vital Signs report describes is a forward-looking approach, some states are already implementing the response in a variety of different ways. This three-part blog series spotlights the current efforts in Tennessee, Illinois and Wisconsin.

Learn more and join the conversation at: http://blogs.cdc.gov/safehealthcare/?p=4590.

Read about Tennessee’s geographic variation of CRE and implications for prevention and learn how Illinois has built a foundation for CRE control.