Longitudinal Trends of Clostridium difficile Infection (CDI) within Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Centers—Acute Care and Long-term Care

BACKGROUND: CDI remains a significant and serious healthcare-associated infection within hospital and long-term care (LTC) settings. In 2012 VA began a CDI Prevention Initiative in its acute care (AC) facilities, which expanded to include LTC. Data were collected with regard to CDI cases and healthcare-facility associated (HCFA) status. METHODS: VA used CDC National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) Lab-ID Event definitions from CDI/MDRO Module with the exception that HCFA-status was called with a more stringent timeframe at 48 hours after admission. Monthly, VA Medical Centers and LTC Facilities report data to a central repository which includes number of cases meeting NHSN definitions for recurrence, hospital onset HCFA (HO-HCFA), community-onset HCFA (CO-HCFA) and community-onset non HCFA (CO-notHCFA) cases (equivalent of NSHN community-acquired [CA] cases). Data collection began from 2011 forward in AC, and from part of 2012 forward in LTC. RESULTS: In AC, the number of all cases reported ranged from 6313 to 6595 with no trend for increase/decrease noted from 2011 to 2016. However, when evaluating proportions of each type of CDI contributing to the overall occurrence, there is significant change over the years (P < 0.0001, Chi-Square analysis of proportions) with HO-HCFA and CO-HCFA contributing to less (24.4% and 25.2%, decreases, respectively) and CO cases (particularly CO-notHCFA) contributing to more (38.1% increase) of the cases, (Fig 1). In LTC, there were overall lesser cases ranging from 980 to 789 from 2013 through 2016 (P = 0.05, linear regression), with no significant changes over the years (P = 0.06, Chi-Square of proportions) (Fig 2). CONCLUSION: Over time, HO-HCFA and CO-HCFA cases have declined within VA AC facilities. However, an increase of CO-notHCFA cases (similar to NHSN CA cases) has occurred, increasing admission prevalence of CDI at VA facilities. As CDI prevalence on admission is a contributor to risk for HCFA disease, this increased pressure indicates the success of the VA CDI Prevention Initiative in decreases of HO-HCFA is even more substantive than raw rates would indicate. However, it also highlights a group of CDI cases which need a different, focused targeting of prevention strategies. DISCLOSURES: All authors: No reported disclosures.