About Us

Presenting the winners of our "HAI Heros" contest!

Congratulations! You're Our Heroes!

Many of you across the U.S. took the time to share your story and pictures with us and, in the process, we discovered many unsung HAI Heroes.

Here are just a few of the stories and pictures we selected to feature.

As an additional way of saying "Thanks!" we're sending out BD HAI Hero T-shirts to every lab that participated. Look for them shortly.

BD values the stewardship we share in preventing and managing HAIs.
Thank you for your daily heroic efforts to that end.

---

Chambersburg Hospital

It's a bird...It's a plane...No it's Microbiology Heroes. Saving helpless patients from the deadly bugs of Human Infections armed with a loop and BBL media, these Techs go to battle every day helping and assisting Clinician and Health Care providers find the answers they need to clean up the micro world.

---

GLWACH Lab

We have 17 civilians, 23 military, and 2 students (42 total).

We have a good story. We are an Army Phase II training facility. Soldiers that complete training and gradate are then able to take MLT certification. These training soldiers are active duty and army reserve. The army reserve soldiers go back to their reserve unit and continue to train for deployment to combat situations to support medical support units which take care of injured soldiers (collecting units of blood, cross matching blood, culturing infections, etc), saving their lives. Some of the reserve soldiers become MLTs in their community. The active duty soldiers are sent to other Army hospitals to perform lab testing on other basic trainees, active duty soldiers and their dependents, and retired veterans. Some of the active duty soldiers are then deployed also.

I attached 3 pictures for the Hero Story. There were some I could have used with more techs (both civilian and army), the BD Blood Culture instrument, and lab week Jeopardy game, but I think these three show a big picture of how the lab is a part of special patient care.

Graduation (picture 1): General Leonard Wood Army Community Hospital (GLWACH) lab graduates MLT-quality active duty and reserve soldiers to be an active part in military and civilian health care.

GLWACH lab is a Phase II school for training army soldiers, both active duty and reserve. Both military and civilian lab personnel are active in instruction of these students. After graduation, active duty soldiers are reassigned to another army medical unit and the reserve soldier returns back to his home medical support unit and is qualified to work in a civilian medical facility. Both types of soldiers can be deployed to combat areas as a vital part of saving American military personnel, be it cross matching blood, or collecting units of blood.

Dependents (picture 2): (In picture) Military dependents, Army soldiers, and Navy personnel present themselves for laboratory testing. The lab assists the hospital mission of providing compassionate and effective health care to the whole military community.

GLWACH lab is part of providing health care to all active duty military (Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, and Coast Guard), their dependents, veterans, and trainees. Fort Leonard Wood is one of five Army basic training sites. The lab is a essential part of keeping young men and women healthy during their time of physical and mental preparedness for a military life and career.

ASBP Display (picture 3): GLWACH lab works in part with Armed Services Blood Program (Army, Navy, and Air Force). Fort Leonard Wood has an Army Blood Collection unit which GLWACH and its lab work in cooperation with and assist. Units of blood are collected, shipped for testing, and end up in combat situations to save military lives.

The collection unit is made up of activated reserved med techs.

Thanks for the time to tell our story.

---

Johns Hopkins Hospital

In a place as big as the Johns Hopkins institutions can be, to be truly efficient, communication is key. It is reflected in our work, the way we help and consult each other (we have many techs from all over with many different fields of expertise), the care we put in each specimen we work on, the many (many) QA/QC steps we put our work through. We are never satisfied with the status quo, always trying to see how we can improve on patients tests' turnaround time without, of course, negatively impacting quality of our services. At JHH microbiology lab, we are Heroes in Healthcare with Excellent Efficiencies, Rapid Results and everyday we attempt to Outdo Outcomes. Of course because we work hard, we play hard as well.

---

Northeast Alabama Regional Medical Center

Microbiology works closely with Infection Control to report and document all organisms that contribute to an increase in Hospital Acquired Infections. The hospital has a HAI team that is represented by all departments in the hospital with sub groups for Urine, Respiratory, bloodstream infections and Cleanliness. For the bloodstream infection part, we in-service (when hired, then quarterly) all phlebotomists on proper technique for drawing cultures to reduce contamination rate to get an accurate count of valid infections. We have a huge hand washing/cleanliness program-not just for staff, but for visitors also. We have posters in halls, signs in bathrooms, and magnetic strips on most patient room doors that looks like a stop sign and says "STOP, WASH, VISIT". We have installed foam hand wash dispensers in all patient rooms, in the hallways, beside elavators, etc. Many changes in the last 2 years have decreased our HAIs slightly but more is being considered. We are considering MRSA surveillance and plan to start that by using BD CHROMagar™ plates and eventually might use the BD GeneOhm™ system. In microbiology, we use BD media for all our cultures.

---

Phelps Memorial Hopsital Center

The submitted pictures were taken during National Lab Week. Each day of the week, we had a different theme. Several vendors showed their appreciation for our hard work by providing lunch every day or prizes. It was a good way to have the lab come together as a group to celebrate our profession. National Lab Week helped remind us of our role in helping to improve healthcare results and outcomes efficiently. Thank you for letting us share our lab with you.

---

Sacred Heart Hospital

Sacred Heart Hospital in Allentown, PA is a 263-bed catholic hospital that is the primary care-giver in the region for the poor and uninsured. We have great competition from the large conglomerations of hospital networks in the area, but have remained private and self-sustaining. This is due to our dedicated staff, many of whom trained at Sacred Heart and have spent their entire careers here. Last year the Microbiology section began screening newly admitted patients from nursing homes and those designated as high-risk in ICU for MRSA using the CHROMagar™ media. The techs call all positives to the unit and Infection Control to ensure that patient isolation occurs. Another method of reducing length of stay, thus decreasing the chance of HAIs is our use of the PNA FISH technology. We are able to determine the first day that a blood culture becomes positive whether the isolate is a pathogen (Staphylococcus aureus) or a possible contaminant (Staphylococcus, not aureus). The microbiology staff is eagerly awaiting the adoption of the latest technology (PCR) to further decrease turnaround time and reduce the risk of the spread of infections.