PENNINGTON GAP, Virginia – Lee County Community Hospital recently celebrated a tremendous achievement – no injury-related falls or hospital-acquired infections since the hospital opened on July 1, 2021!
Hospital team members held a celebration of their “no harm, no foul” achievement on Day No. 617 of keeping the patients of the community safe and working diligently to maintain a safe environment. The hospital had been closed in 2013 before being reopened in 2021.
This includes a range of infections the hospital has avoided:
- CLABSI – Central line-associated bloodstream infection
- CAUTI – Catheter-associated urinary tract infections
- VAP – Ventilator-associated pneumonia
- MRSA – Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (a cause of staph infection)
- C Diff – Clostridioides difficile (a germ that can cause diarrhea and colitis)
- GNR – Gram-negative bacteremia (frequent cause of sepsis)
- CRE – Carbapenem-resistant enterobacterales (resistant to antibiotics)
- VRE – Vancomycin-resistant enterococcus
“I think more than 600 days without a hospital-acquired infection is a tremendous accomplishment and deserves to be celebrated,” said Mitch Kennedy, chief administrator for Lee County Community Hospital. “I’m most proud of this team because they encompass the Ballad Health mission statement: ‘To honor those we serve by delivering the best possible care.’ We brought together a team that had never worked together to a facility that had been shuttered for nearly a decade. They were and still are so passionate to care for the community in which they live. This team advocates for every patient we serve and embodies the culture we live in.”
