CareFusion Foundation awards St. Joseph’s infection-prevention grant

SYRACUSE — St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center today announced that the CareFusion Foundation has awarded it a Clinical Excellence Grant worth more than $47,000.

The funding is intended to help recipients develop and share best practices in infection prevention.

In total, the CareFusion Foundation awarded nearly $520,000 to 11 hospitals across the U.S., including St. Joseph’s, the Syracuse–based hospital said in a news release.

St. Joseph’s plans to use the funding to try to extend the success of its internal Antibiotic Stewardship Program (ASP) to local long-term care facilities to help address Clostridium difficile (C. diff.) rates in the community, the hospital said.

The ASP’s goal is to reduce health-care-associated infections through decreased use of antibiotics and to promote the appropriate use of these powerful medicines, St. Joseph’s said.

As a pilot program, St. Joseph’s will collaborate with Loretto to reduce C. diff. cases among its residents, and consequently among St. Joseph’s patients with the infection, the hospital said.

The CareFusion Foundation is the charity-distribution arm of San Diego, Calif.–based CareFusion Corp. (NYSE: CFN)

Established in 2009, the CareFusion Foundation says it seeks to create and support opportunities to improve the safety and cost of health care. The organization also says it supports nonprofit organizations that improve the wellness of communities where CareFusion employees live and work.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com