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The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations has sent out a sentinel alert to all accredited facilities calling for them to report fatal nosocomial infections. The request for data has raised concerns among infection control professionals, who argue that ascribing deaths to infections is a complex matter confounded by underlying illness and a host of other variables.
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Health care workers receiving their first lifetime vaccination for smallpox only should be stuck three times with the bifurcated immunization needle not the 15 skin pricks previously recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
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Harsh lessons learned from the governments forced anthrax vaccination campaign in the military include poor communication, driving people out of the service, and massive underreporting of adverse reactions among those immunized, according to a report by the General Accounting Office (GAO).
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With its smallpox immunization plan now under way in the nations hospitals, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) must decide how many adverse reactions and deaths are acceptable before modifying or halting the program, told a special smallpox review panel formed at the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in Washington, DC.
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In emerging findings that will fuel more debate about immunizing U.S. health care workers for smallpox, a similar program in Israel has resulted in four hospitalizations including the immunocompromised wife of a vaccinee, Bioterrorism Watch has learned.
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Effective Jan. 1, 2003, all Joint Commission Accreditation of Healthcare Organization organizations will be surveyed for implementation of the recommendations or of an acceptable alternative. Alternatives must be at least as effective as the published recommendations in achieving the goals.
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The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations is partnering with three other organizations to conduct a study that will examine hospitals timely use of antibiotics before and after cardiovascular, joint replacement, and hysterectomy surgeries to effectively reduce post-surgical infection.
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Though recent research supports the need for more infection control staffing than traditionally allotted, ICPs are not expected to press for a specific staffing requirement from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations.
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In an unusual direct appeal to health care facilities, the chairman of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations is asking for reports of nosocomial infections that result in patient deaths or permanent loss of function.