Resolve, Requiring Rulemaking by the Maine Health Data Organization in Consultation with the Maine Quality Forum Regarding Clostridium Difficile and Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus

Sec. 1. Rules. Resolved: That, by January 1, 2010, the Maine Health Data Organization in consultation with the Maine Quality Forum shall adopt rules regarding public reporting by hospitals on issues regarding methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and Clostridium difficile to include:

1. Reporting on the hospital's adoption of a multiple drug-resistant organism prevention program as part of the hospital's broader health-care-associated infection prevention strategies, including hand hygiene, contact precautions that include barriers as appropriate, isolation policies, design of a response to increases in infection rates and environmental precautions; and

2. Reporting on the hospital's quarterly submission to the Maine Health Data Organization of the number of patients at high risk for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and the number of these patients surveilled in the hospital's targeted surveillance of high-risk populations.

The rules must include a definition of "high risk" and the components of a targeted surveillance program that follow the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines and are determined by the Maine Quality Forum in consultation with the Maine Infection Prevention Collaborative by October 1, 2009.

The Maine Quality Forum, in conjunction with members of a statewide collaborative group of infection prevention specialists, a representative of a statewide organization representing nurses and a person representing consumers, shall design metrics for assessment of reporting functions and establish performance measures, which must be posted on the Maine Quality Forum's publicly accessible website, and include the performance measure data in the annual Maine Quality Forum report to the Legislature required by the Maine Revised Statutes, Title 24-A, section 6951, subsection 10.

Rules adopted pursuant to this section are major substantive rules as defined in the Maine Revised Statutes, Title 5, chapter 375, subchapter 2-A.