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Insuring that the blood supply is free of transmissible pathogens remains a challenge. Since 1987, 7 cases of transfusion-transmitted Trypanosoma cruzi infections have occurred in the United States/Canada. The chronic nature of Chagas disease and the increasing number of immigrants from endemic countries may warrant the need to institute universal testing for this parasite.
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At the 52nd Annual Meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, Dr. Monica Parise from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention presented her annual update on prevention and treatment of malaria.
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Health care workers need an annual influenza (flu) vaccine to protect themselves and their patients, advise national infection control officials. The Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology has added its voice and power to that message.
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Source: Centers for Disease Prevention and Control, National Immunization Program, Atlanta
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The HIPAA Conformance Certification Organization says its Common Compliance Assessment Process determined that, on average, the nations leading HIPAA translation and validation vendors agree in their interpretation of compliance 43% of the time, up from an average of 35% on all transactions in 2003.
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The HIPAA Implementation Working Group, a coalition formed to help providers and vendors better understand the process by which the HIPAA electronic standards are developed and modified and to increase provider and vendor representation in that process, has contacted Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) administrator Mark McClellan to express concern over a CMS instruction to fiscal intermediaries to reject claims lacking certain data elements not needed by Medicare for claims adjudication.
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Nearly 82 million Americans younger than 65 went without health insurance for all or part of 2002 and 2003, according to a report released recently by Families USA.
