National Healthcare Safety Network Facility-Wide Inpatient Hospital-Onset Clostridium Difficile (CDI) Outcome Measure

Standardized infection ratio (SIR) and Adjusted Ranking Metric (ARM) of hospital-onset CDI Laboratory-identified events (LabID events) among all inpatients in the facility, excluding well-baby nurseries and neonatal intensive care units (NICUs).

Date Reviewed: July 21, 2018
Do Not Support: Uncertain Validity
    Facility Population: Regional and State

Measure Info

NQF 1717 NQF Endorsed
Measure Type
Outcome
Measure Steward
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Clinical Topic Area
Hospital Acquired Infections
Care Setting
Emergency Department and Services
Inpatient
Post-Acute Care
Data Source
Electronic Health Data
Electronic Health Records
Paper Medical Records

ACP does not support NQF measure #1717: “National Healthcare Safety Network Facility-Wide Inpatient Hospital-Onset CDI Outcome Measure.” This measure represents an important clinical concept; however, implementation could promote inappropriate screening for CDI. Developers should consider revising the specifications to include appropriate screening criteria for CDI. The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) recommends against randomly screening for CDI unless patients have at least 3 or more unformed stools in the timespan of 24 hours. Furthermore, it is unclear why the risk-adjustment model includes facility-level characteristics. Poorly performing hospitals should aim to improve performance rates, regardless of medical school affiliation or ICU size. Instead, abstractors should stratify results by these characteristics to demonstrate meaningful differences in clinical outcomes across institutions. Also, measure specifications should include exclusion criteria for patients who are colonized for CDI on admission. Lastly, developers should revise the numerator specifications to include evidencebased testing modalities.