Valley Hospital, Holy Name Medical Center collaborate to defeat C. difficile

The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, NJ, and Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck, NJ, are collaborating to defeat a common foe: a dangerous drug-resistant bacterium called Clostridium difficile, or C. difficile.

The two hospitals recently announced the formation of the Valley-Holy Name Joint Healthcare-Acquired Infections/Antibiotic Resistance Collaborative.

C. difficile is a bacterium that can cause symptoms ranging from diarrhea to life-threatening inflammation of the colon. It was responsible for almost half a million infections and was associated with approximately 29,000 deaths in 2011, according to a study released last year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

"C. difficile is public enemy No. 1 and it is clear that defeating it will take a cooperative, multi-institutional and multidisciplinary approach, since the infection can be picked up at any point in a patient's care and can be transmitted from institution to institution, "said Neil Gaffin, M.D., an infectious disease specialist at The Valley Hospital, "No one is going to get anywhere without working together."

The CDC study found that 65.8 percent of the cases of C. difficile were health care-associated, but only 24.2 percent had onset during hospitalization. The rest originated in a nursing home or were associated with having received outpatient care at a health care facility. The CDC has called upon health care facilities to work together to fight C. difficile, noting that because these infections can be spread inside of and between health care facilities when patients are transferred from one facility to another, a lack of coordination can put patients at risk.

Healthcare organizations are working very hard to meet the challenge of this organism, which is resistant to antibiotics causing overgrowth in the intestine in patients who are receiving antibiotic and produces a spore which persists in the environment, unaffected by soap and water as well as alcohol-based sanitizers. In addition, this organism produces a toxin which causes disease.

"We are employing bleach-based disinfectants, which are the only compounds that will inactivate the spores, and are restricting the use, spectrum and duration of antibiotic therapy to preserve the normal organisms in a patient," said Thomas Birch, M.D., an infectious disease specialist at Holy Name Medical Center.

Valley has also instituted an aggressive campaign to reduce the unnecessary use of antibiotics and a comprehensive environmental disinfection program.