Hospital Infection Control & Prevention – January 1, 2010
January 1, 2010
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Blunt assessment: Surgeons stuck by suture needles endanger themselves and patients
Veteran surgeon Ramon Berguer, MD, routinely stitches up patients in suture seams as tight as a quarter-inch or less, with the needle tip drawing perilously close to his gloved opposite hand. Occasionally it hits with the force to cause a needlestick, but what results is not an injury but a memory. -
Elephant in the room is patient on the table
Beyond the logistical disincentives, hassles and headaches of reporting to employee health after an injury in the operating room there is the chilling stigma of what the surgeon may find out about herself and possibly be obligated to tell future patients: "I'm HIV-positive." -
ACS recommends safety needles, double-gloving
The American College of Surgeons (ACS) most recent recommendations on infection prevention and safety in the operating room are summarized as follows: -
Be ready for both OSHA and H1N1
You might receive a citation from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) if you fail to assess respiratory hazards related to H1N1 pandemic influenza A, don't use various methods to reduce employee exposure or fail to consider respirators other than N95s when there is a shortage. -
What OSHA inspectors will ask about H1N1
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration's compliance directive to protect health care workers from H1N1 pandemic influenza A includes a series of questions inspectors may ask when on a health care site visit. Know the answers to these and you're OSHA ready in terms of H1N1: -
Infection liability grows, cases harder to defend
Infection preventionists recently received some legal advice, and it wasn't quite as bleak as the old admonition to put everything you own under your spouse's name. -
Grim autopsies: H1N1, a true killer in some cases
Though a growing sense of public apathy threatens to reduce H1N1 influenza A to the Rodney Dangerfield of pandemics, those who have experienced or witnessed a severe case of infection will not soon forget this erstwhile "swine flu." -
iPNewbe: What can possibly go wrong? Don't ask
Your infection prevention and control program is textbook perfect. You have verified that each little nuance of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Conditions of Participation, The Joint Commission accreditation requirements, and your state licensing rules, are covered in policy, procedure, and program(s). -
2009 Salary Survey Results: Infection preventionists hold the battered line amid devastated economy, H1N1 flu pandemic
After an economic wildfire that swept through health care and laid waste to entire industries in other sectors, infection preventionsts may be a little singed around the edges but they're still standing.