HAI money in the stimulus bill

Constant readers, for those of you who are following the back-and-forth over the economic stimulus bill, I wanted to let you know that the Association of Professionals in Infection Control (APIC) is saying that the compromise may cut money for state programs to reduce hospital-associated infections.

Here is APIC's alert:

ACT NOW TO PRESERVE HAI AND PUBLIC HEALTH FUNDING IN STIMULUS BILL

Your urgent action is needed now to preserve public health funding related to HAIs in the stimulus bill pending in Congress.
The stimulus bill passed by the House of Representatives includes $3 billion in funding for overall public health, prevention and wellness programs. Part of this funding includes $150 million for carrying out activities to implement a national action plan to prevent healthcare-associated infections, $50 million of which would be provided to states to implement HAI reduction strategies.
Because of the fast-moving action on this legislation, and the fact that an agreement has been reached to remove prevention and wellness from the Senate stimulus bill, your Members of Congress need to hear from you today as the House and Senate prepare to confer over a final version of the bill. We need them to support the House-passed provisions for public health, prevention and wellness and the HAI language in the stimulus bill (the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009).

I apologize that, being deep in book production, I don't know the details of the HAI-reduction programs they are talking about, whether it means support for new mandatory reporting programs or some other thing. (I'll ask some of the HAI-focused organizations to weigh in back-channel if they can.)

But if you are concerned about the recent new initiatives in various states to report, track and control HAIs, this is probably worth looking at.