Hospital Infection Control & Prevention – September 1, 2023
September 1, 2023
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NV-HAP: Barriers to Preventing Most Common Hospital Infection
In the pandemic aftermath, with lean resources and nurse staffing in shortfall, there remains this stubborn fact: The most prevalent healthcare-associated infection has no reporting requirements nor well understood incentives to adopt evidence-based prevention practices.
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A Bad Bug in a Burn Unit
As infection control worst-case scenarios go, it does not get much more challenging than a carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii outbreak in a burn unit.
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C. auris: Active Screening Interrupts Transmission
The ability for emerging fungal threat Candida auris to move undetected across the healthcare continuum via asymptomatic colonized patients capable of transmitting the pathogen raises a compelling question.
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Potential Spread Via Droplets from Dirty to Clean Instruments
Infection preventionists may want to recheck the distance between the separation of dirty and clean activities in cleaning and reprocessing rooms after researchers found contaminated droplets can travel more than seven feet.
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Vaccine Mandates: Critical or Counterproductive?
Testifying before a recent congressional committee on vaccine mandates, John Lynch, MD, MPH, FIDSA, medical director of infection prevention and control at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, extolled the many benefits of COVID-19 immunization compared to the risks of morbidity, mortality, and the lingering chronic effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection.
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COVID Forced a Unity of Purpose
Writing a “Science Speaks” blog on the website of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, Erica Kaufman West, MD, went through highs and lows of the pandemic before ultimately returning to business as usual, rolling a rock senselessly up a hill like the Greek mythic figure Sisyphus.