As a part of Public Well being Thank You Day, celebrated yearly on the Monday earlier than Thanksgiving, we’d prefer to honor Denise Cardo, MD, who not too long ago retired from public service after 30 years devoted to affected person security.

Denise leaves a legacy of defending the US and the globe from a few of our most difficult and pressing infectious illness threats.

Cardo joined CDC in 1993 as a medical epidemiologist within the Hospital Infections Program (later named the Division of Healthcare High quality Promotion), and after holding a number of management positions in DHQP, she was chosen as division director in 2003.

Cardo is beloved throughout the company for her work ethic and willingness to deal with troublesome conditions. Her profession is marked by unimaginable public well being success, together with implementing nationwide public hospital reporting, growing methods for the elimination of healthcare-associated infections, working to speed up efforts in opposition to antimicrobial resistance, and launching the nation’s first hospital sepsis core parts. She has spent her profession ensuring healthcare amenities do their best possible to guard sufferers, healthcare staff, and communities.

We requested Cardo about her tenure, and she or he shared the next tenets.

Keep in mind the affected person.

Cardo has accomplished her work from a people-centered lens. She has expertise as a CDC worker, clinician, affected person, and member of the family. Denise believes that doing the correct factor for sufferers ought to be our focus, even when it isn’t the most well-liked factor to do. “Behind the quantity is an individual and a household. Specializing in individuals makes the bruises alongside the best way extra manageable,” she shares. Denise fought for public reporting of hospital infections, although many advisors and even colleagues advised her the trouble was too dangerous and troublesome. Throughout this time, she confronted backlash from decisionmakers and healthcare amenities, however she continued. Denise partnered with different companies, and her division led the transition of the Nationwide Healthcare Security Community (NHSN) to help each the gathering and public reporting of the info, permitting extra transparency and accountability for prevention.

Over time, Denise has additionally established significant working relationships with affected person and relations to verify their voices and data are heard. She completed this by inviting them to CDC to share their tales. The relationships she created typically began with exhausting conversations, typically leading to households demanding CDC to take extra motion. Right this moment, nonetheless these years-long partnerships have helped CDC enhance affected person security, in some ways, together with the discharge of applications just like the Hospital Sepsis Program Core Parts. Throughout Denise’s time at CDC, infections in healthcare decreased. Moreover, extra healthcare amenities turned capable of observe their progress and determine issues (from a number of hundred to greater than 38,000). All states now have efficient applications to stop infections in well being care.

Describe actions, not issues. 

Cardo prides herself on her crew’s means to unravel duties that appear “not possible.” Her action-oriented management abilities encourage specialists not simply to ask, “What’s the issue?” but in addition, “How can we repair it?” Anybody who has been in a gathering with Denise has heard her patiently hearken to information shows and, on the conclusion, ask politely, “And what are we going to do about it?”

She has been a tireless advocate for higher an infection management practices, emphasizing the significance of prevention along with acceptable therapy. When she was working towards the elimination of healthcare-associated infections, individuals once more advised her it was not possible. “We’re not the Facilities for Description of Issues,” she laughs. “We had good information; we may have simply printed to a journal. However these infections shouldn’t be taking place. It was our job to outline the objectives and provides individuals the instruments they should shield sufferers. I stated, ‘Show to me it’s not attainable.’” Denise and her crew then started finding out the Toyota Manufacturing System and different methods for clues on easy methods to frequently and incrementally enhance healthcare high quality and an infection management, for each affected person.

In the long run, Denise and her crew led the event of the primary U.S. nationwide motion plan that established nationwide targets for stopping infections, holding federal authorities companies accountable for making progress. Her division has been instrumental within the U.S. responses to numerous outbreaks, starting from COVID-19 to fungal meningitis, medicine and medical machine contamination, vaccine security, and the security of the nationwide blood provide and of organ transplantation. Denise gained the Shepherd award for a few of these efforts, nominated by grateful colleagues and worldwide specialists.

Keep humble and open to progress. 

Regardless of her place of authority, Cardo has persistently led her groups with humility. She encourages division members to query themselves, noting that regardless of being world class, “gold commonplace” specialists, all of us make errors. That’s why Denise has at all times supported her medical employees to remain on rotation at native healthcare amenities. “I would like our individuals to place our suggestions into apply, see what works and what’s exhausting, after which we enhance upon it,” she says. Denise has utilized the identical precept on her many particulars when she has served as interim chief for a number of of CDC’s main Facilities in instances of organizational want, together with as Appearing Deputy Director for the company. She brings again what she learns from these assignments to assist enhance DHQP and the division’s nationwide and international public well being impacts. Cardo believes that in questioning, all of us have a better alternative to advertise transparency, in addition to study and develop from one another.

Cardo can be well-known for bringing communications and coverage specialists together with her to necessary conferences and occasions and together with them discussions in regards to the general strategic route for the division. “We should have them on the desk from the beginning,” she says empathically. “Empower your colleagues, give them a voice; they do greater than replace web sites.” Cardo invested in communications experience in media relations, threat communications, communication science, and prioritized coverage outcomes. Lots of the company’s most senior communication and coverage leaders started their profession in her division.

Companion towards perfection. 

Inside her division, Cardo has inspired the idea of partnering and co-creating. “Throughout HHS, CDC, our personal division: we now have the identical objectives, we simply use completely different techniques. You could have a look at the panorama and assist to fill the gaps,” says Denise, reflecting on her many accomplishments that required collaboration. This performed out in some ways in her daily, typically partnering together with her late husband, Ken, an ICU director, to stability her prevention concepts along with his extra sensible ones; partnering with organizations right this moment that she might have been extra adversarial a few years in the past; or partnering with state and native well being departments to champion the wants of underserved and distant communities. “We’re serving sufferers, constructing collectively, and that’s what issues most.”

Denise Cardo has been a trailblazer in her profession. Her service has been incomparable, and her work ethic unmatched. Her affect has prolonged past CDC, shaping insurance policies and practices that safeguard public well being on a worldwide scale. We have a good time her outstanding journey and need her a joyful and well-deserved retirement. Thanks, Denise, in your dedication to humanity.

In regards to the Authors

Katy Capers, MA, is the Affiliate Director for Communications in CDC’s Division for Healthcare High quality Promotion.

Kendra Driver, PhD, is the Author/Editor in CDC’s Division for Healthcare High quality Promotion.