"Additionally, we see support of major collaborative networks as key to sharing and replicating innovative models across the country." SHEA urged HHS to think beyond measures that past practice suggests are effective and to invest in research and technology to learn how medical errors can be avoided. "We applaud the initiative's emphasis on greater patient engagement so that patients will be better equipped to advocate for quality care and raise questions when it is lacking," SHEA said. The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) praised the initiative today in an e-mailed statement. More than 500 hospitals, as well as physicians' and nurses' groups, consumer groups, and employers, have pledged to participate in the partnership, HHS said. HHS plans to invest up to $1 billion in the program, using funds made available under the Affordable Care Act. The program will ask hospitals to focus on nine types of medical errors and complications, including surgical site infections, adverse drug reactions, pressure ulcers, and childbirth complications. HHS said the program has two goals: (1) lowering the annual rate of hospital-acquired conditions 40% by 2013, which would mean 1.8 million fewer patient injuries and more than 60,000 lives saved, and (2) reducing complications during transitions from one care setting to another, with the aim of lowering hospital readmissions 20% by the end of 2013. The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today announced an initiative called the "Partnership for Patients" with the aim of slashing the rate of preventable injuries and complications, including infections, in patient care over the next 3 years. HHS announces national partnership to improve patient safety The researchers said their findings suggest that the environmental E coli strains represent a distinct species from the typical gut-dwelling strains. "These results suggest the need to develop a new culture-independent, genome-based coliform test so that the non-hazardous environmental types of E coli are not counted as fecal contamination," said Kostas Konstantinidis, senior author of the study. The strains look like typical E coli strains on traditional tests and yield a positive fecal coliform test result, even though they may not represent an environmental hazard, according to the report. But Georgia Tech researchers, writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ( PNAS), report that they identified and sequenced the genomes of nine E coli strains that have adapted to living in the environment. E coli in water is also seen as a sign of potentially more harmful microbes that may accompany it. Fecal pollution of surface water is assessed by checking the level of E coli in it, because the bacterium is believed to live only in the intestines and waste of warm-blood animals, according to a press release from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Scientists say they have found strains of Escherichia coli that live in the environment, independent of warm-blooded hosts, which raises questions about the standard fecal coliform test used to monitor water quality. E coli findings raise question about coliform test for water monitoring
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