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The Minnesota Department of Health has issued guidelines for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) that address an issue the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has left unresolved: when to discontinue contact isolation precautions.
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The SCIP Surgical Care Improvement Project (SCIP) is not just for clinicians. There is a message for patients as well: Know the risks and protect yourself.
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The problem is a common one: Patient handling leads to back strain and pain and even to serious injury. The solution is less obvious: Empower health care workers to analyze the tasks and come up with their own corrective plan.
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When removing personal protective equipment, it's important for health care workers to realize that the gowns, gloves, masks, and goggles are contaminated. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) have slightly different protocols, but both are designed to prevent health care workers from becoming ill from contaminated PPE.
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Imagine a disposable respirator that fits well right out of the box. Or perhaps even a respirator that's inexpensive and requires no annual fit-test.
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No more needlesticks. That sounds like a laudable goal that could prevent health care workers from being exposed to deadly diseases. But, in tandem, hospitals need to maintain another important message that could actually cause their numbers to rise: Report all needlesticks.
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OSHA has proposed wording changes to the following sections of standards that related to the health care industry:
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It just takes an evening of viewing the television drama E.R. to know that hospital work is stressful. But the stress that evolves into an occupational hazard isn't from treating trauma victims or mysterious illnesses.
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Many hospitals would be happy to lift their rate of health care worker influenza immunization past 60% or 70%, but in Iowa, the bar is quite a bit higher than that. In fact, it is near perfection.