2205 - Rising Tide: Candida Auris in Post-acute Care

Session Description: The amount of Candida auris (C. auris) cases in Indiana increased steadily toward the end of 2021. Of the 190 cases in 2021, 139 (73%) were reported in the last six months of the year. As awareness of C. auris increased in both acute care hospitals (ACH) and post-acute care facilities, hesitance increased among some long-term care (LTC) facilities to receive C. auris residents. This was attributed to concerns about providing adequate care and resulted in longer lengths-of-stay in ACHs. The Sars-CoV2 Omicron surge directly affected the acuity of care needed for residents and increased staffing needs in some LTC facilities. The continued cases of C. auris in early 2022, lack of staffing, and an inability to transfer C. auris positive patients to LTCs resulted in certain ACHs reaching out to our team for assistance. This presentation will focus on the numerous barriers that were identified as potential contributing factors to this delay in the transfer of patients. As public health partners we engaged in multiple initiatives to try and determine a way our state could best provide support to both the ACHs that were having difficulty transferring patients and the LTCs that were hesitant to receive them. We will discuss the solutions that we proposed and those that have helped to date with this rise in the tide of C. auris in our state.