COLUMBIA, SC – South Carolina's 65 acute care hospitals are banding together to prevent healthcare-acquired infections across the state. The effort is expected to save hundreds of lives and as much $40 million a year.

Key to the effort is the use of an automated infection-monitoring tool developed by the Premier healthcare alliance. Premier will also develop an information-sharing portal to support the initiative.

Health ciences outh Carolina, the South Carolina Hospital Association and the Premier ealthcare alliance announced last month the 
formation of the South Carolina Healthcare uality rust 
(SC HQT).

The trust includes the state's largest research universities - Clemson University, Medical University of South Carolina and the University of South Carolina. It also includes the state's largest health systems - Greenville Hospital System, Palmetto Health nd partanburg Regional Healthcare System. All of them will work with Health Sciences South Carolina to adopt existing evidence-based best practices, as well as research and develop new methods, to eliminate preventable infections.

"We all know someone whose life has been altered, sometimes permanently, by a preventable healthcare-associated infection," said Jay Moskowitz, president and CEO of Health Sciences South Carolina. "South Carolina believes it is time for change. Through this collaborative, we will use our state's best researchers to determine the causes of specific infections. We will test the solutions in our state's four largest health systems, which today treat about 30 percent of all patients, and share the best practices, products and services that result with all 65 of the state's acute care hospitals."

The Premier portal will play a key role making it possible for all South Carolina hospitals to research the causes of healthcare-acquired infections, or HAIs, 
and to identify and promote existing and new processes for prevention.