Hospitals face possible citation for failing to use a rapid HIV test after a bloodborne pathogen exposure, according to a letter of interpretation by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Once again, a trendsetter in occupational health, California has created a draft standard on aerosol transmissible diseases that would allow biannual fit-testing of N95-filtering facepiece respirators until at least 2012 but would require the use of powered air purifying respirators (PAPRs) during high-hazard procedures.
If you were frustrated by the slow delivery of influenza vaccine last fall, public health officials have a message for you: Get used to it.
Hospitals are wrestling with the cost of complying with recent guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta on pertussis vaccination of health care workers.
The air is clear in public buildings, restaurants, and even many bars across America. So why should anyone light up even within a few steps of a hospital?
The Joint Commission is trying to solve the Achilles heel of hand hygiene: monitoring compliance by health care workers.
As part of an increasing emphasis on patient empowerment and education, infection control professionals have seen arcane terms such as "nosocomial" de-emphasized in favor of clearer language.
Hospitals must act swiftly to protect health care workers from infectious diseases, even when the scientific evidence is unclear about transmission.
When a day care worker reported to employee health at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, NH, with a severe, spasmatic cough that had lasted more than two weeks, an employee health nurse immediately thought of pertussis.
n extensively drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis (XDR-TB) is virtually untreatable and poses a threat to worldwide TB control.
