The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about one in 31 hospital patients admitted to acute-care hospitals in the United States on any day has at least one infection that was not related to the condition for which they were hospitalized. This amounts to more than 680,000 infections and billions of dollars in excess healthcare costs for related to healthcare-associated annually.
Although the precise causes of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) are difficult to identify, experts believe that about many could be prevented using current recommendations. The goal of Memorial Sloan Kettering’s Infection Prevention & Control program is to provide the safest healthcare environment for our patients by using existing guidelines to prevent HAIs and to engage in research to further the mission of infection prevention.
Activities
Infection Prevention & Control team members participate in several collaborative performance improvement initiatives and conduct research on the epidemiology and prevention of healthcare-associated infections.
We accomplish these goals through real-time surveillance, data collection and trend review, environmental rounding, practice observations, outbreak investigations, performance improvement projects, and research. Members of the team also work to develop evidence-based prevention policies for device-associated infections, like central line insertion bundles or urinary catheter guidelines, invasive procedures, and for both emerging and re-emerging diseases, like COVID-19 and measles.
Through institutional support and collaboration with peer cancer centers, our program is actively engaged in numerous projects on several aspects of the epidemiology and prevention of HAIs. Our research focuses on defining rates of HAIs across centers to establish reliable benchmarks and measure performance, study novel interventions to reduce HAIs, and elucidate transmission patterns of epidemiologically relevant nosocomial pathogens.
Examples of ongoing projects in these areas include:
- resource utilization and cost effectiveness of active surveillance for select multidrug-resistant organisms
- prevention of central venous catheter infection, urinary catheter infection, and surgical site infections
- application of genotyping techniques to understand transmission of C. difficile in high-risk settings
Collaborations
Our Infection Prevention & Control program involves collaboration with all patient care settings across MSK, from departments who have direct patient care to those that support the environment, sterilize equipment, or perform diagnostic testing. The design and scope of our program are based on the risk that the hospital faces related to the acquisition and transmission of infectious diseases. In addition to having a presence in our hospital inpatient units, we also visit all ambulatory and perioperative sites, conduct an annual risk assessment, and audit compliance with standards that pertain to infection prevention.
We routinely partner with our Clinical Microbiology Department to review our testing assays, turnaround times, and other initiatives to ensure we can review our infections in real-time and prevent further transmission. During outbreaks, our partnership is essential in determining routes of transmission through whole genome sequencing and increased testing capabilities.
Additional initiatives include collaborative projects with MSK’s Employee Health and Wellness Service, including studies of rates of needlesticks and other occupational exposures, as well as tuberculin reactivity rates among healthcare workers. Annually, the flu vaccination program is reviewed and supported by Infection Prevention & Control.
Faculty
Our Infection Prevention & Control team consists of infection preventionists, an epidemiologist, surveillance specialists, and lab technicians with expertise in various areas of healthcare, including:
- surveillance for emerging, re-emerging, and multidrug-resistant organisms
- surgical site and device-related infections
- infection prevention in acute, ambulatory, and perioperative patient care settings
- environmental hygiene
- infection risk related to hospital construction
Mini Kamboj, MD
Chief Medical Epidemiologist, Infection Prevention & Control
Tania Bubb, PhD, RN, CIC
Senior Director, Infection Prevention & Control
Justin Laracy, MD
Associate Medical Epidemiologist, Infection Prevention & Control
Rich Kodama, DO
Assistant Medical Epidemiologist, Infection Prevention & Control
Publications
Laracy JC, Robilotti EV, Yan J, Lucca A, Aslam A, Babady NE, Kamboj M. Comparison of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) symptoms at diagnosis among healthcare personnel before and after the emergence of the omicron variant. Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology. 2023,May;44:821-823. PMCID:PMC9068496
Yan J, Steiger SN, Kodama R, Fender J, Tan C, Laracy J, Cohen N, McMillen T, Jani K, Robilotti EV, Babady NE, Seo SK, Kamboj M. Predictors of coronavirus disease 2019 hospitalization after sotrovimab in patients with hematologic malignancy during the BA.1 Omicron surge. Clinical Infectious Diseases. 2023,Apr;76:1476-1482.
Widman AJ, Cohen B, Park V, McClure T, Wolchok J, Kamboj M. Immune-related adverse events among COVID-19-vaccinated patients with cancer receiving immune checkpoint blockade. Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network. 2022,Oct;20:1134-1138. PMCID:PMC10975484
Babady NE, Cohen B, McClure T, Chow K, Caldararo M, Jani K, McMillen T, Taur Y, Shah M, Robilotti E, Aslam A, Kamboj M. Variable duration of viral shedding in cancer patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology. 2022,Oct;43:1413-1415. PMCID:PMC8458847
Chow K, Aslam A, McClure T, Singh J, Burns J, McMillen T, Jani K, Lucca A, Bubb T, Robilotti EV, Babady NE, Kamboj M. Risk of healthcare-associated transmission of sever acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in hospitalized cancer patients. Clinical Infectious Diseases. 2022,May;74:1579-1585. PMCID:PMC8385815
Aslam A, Singh J, Robilotti E, Chow K, Bist T, Reidy-Lagunes D, Shah M, Korenstein D, Babady NE, Kamboj M. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 surveillance and exposure in the perioperative setting with universal testing and personal protective equipment policies. Clinical Infectious Diseases. 2021,Nov;73:e3013-e3018. PMCID:PMC7665395
Miles-Jay A, Young VB, Pamer EG, Savidge TC, Kamboj M, Garey KW, Snitkin ES. A multisite genomic epidemiology study of Clostridioides difficile infections in the USA supports differential roles of healthcare versus community spread for two common strains. Microbial Genomics. 2021,Jun;7:000590. PMCID:PMC8461479
Babady NE, Aslam A, McMillen T, Syed M, Zehir A, Kamboj M. Genotypic correlation between post discharge Clostridiodes difficle infection (CDI) and previous unit-based contacts. Journal of Hospital Infection. 2021,Mar;109:96-100. PMCID:PMC8456756
Kamboj M, McMillen T, Syed M, Chow HY, Jani K, Aslam A, Brite J, Fanelli B, Hasan NA, Dadlani M, Westblade L, Zehir A, Simon M, Babady NE. Evaluation of a combined multilocus sequence typing and whole-genome sequencing two-step algorithm for routine typing of Clostridioides difficile. Journal of Clinical Microbiology. 2021,Feb;59:01955-20. PMCID:PMC8111118
Babady NE, McMillen T, Jani K, Viale A, Robilotti EV, Aslam A, Diver M, Sokoli D, Mason G, Shah MK, Korenstein D, Kamboj M. Performance of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 real-time RT-PCR tests on oral rinses and saliva samples. Journal of Molecular Diagnostics. 2021,Jan;23:3-9. PMCID:PMC7670901
Kamboj M, Gennarelli RL, Brite J, Sepkowitz K, Lipitz-Snyderman A. Risk for Clostridiodes difficile infection among older adults with cancer. Emerging Infectious Diseases. 2019,Sep;25:1683-1689. PMCID:PMC6711221
Brite J, McMillen T, Robilotti E, Sun J, Chow HY, Stell F, Seo SK, McKenna D, Eagan J, Montecalvo M, Chen D, Sepkowitz K, Kamboj M. Effectiveness of ultraviolet disinfection in reducing hospital-acquired Clostridium difficile and vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus on a bone marrow transplant unit. Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology. 2018,Nov;39:1301-1306. PMCID:PMC8524758
Usiak SC, Romero FA, Schwegman P, Fitzpatrick V, Connor M, Eagan J, Brown AE, Kamboj M. Utilization of electronic health record events to conduct a tuberculosis contact investigation in a high-risk oncology unit. Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology. 2017,Oct;38:1235-1239.
Richardson L, Brite J, Del Castillo M, Childers T, Sheahan A, Huang YT, Dougherty E, Babady NE, Sepkowitz K, Kamboj M. Comparison of respiratory virus shedding by conventional and molecular testing methods in patients with haematological malignancy. Clinical Microbiology and Infection. 2016,Apr;22:380.e1-380.e7. PMCID:PMC4994888
Kamboj M, Blair R, Bell N, Son C, Huang YT, Dowling M, Lipitz-Snyderman A, Eagan J, Sepkowitz K. Use of disinfection cap to reduce central-line-associated bloodstream infection and blood culture contamination among hematology-oncology patients. Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology. 2015,Dec;36:1401-1408. PMCID:PMC4988232
