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If your vaccinated employees have red, swollen arms, swollen lymph glands, and fever, are they having an adverse reaction? Probably not, says William Schaffner, MD, professor and chairman of the Department of Preventive Medicine at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, TN.
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Add more safeguards to ensure that the smallpox vaccination program is as safe as possible, a federal panel of medical experts urged the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.
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Caution prevailed over urgency as hospitals slowly began implementing the smallpox vaccination program in February. By taking extra safeguards and strictly limiting the health care workers receiving the vaccine, they hoped to avoid the adverse effects associated with the vaccine.
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Back injuries are second only to the common cold as a cause of absenteeism. And they are more than four times more common in health care than in other industries. After noting those facts, a new web resource offers basic information about ergonomics and links to dozens of other resources.
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Exposures to bloodborne pathogens can be frightening. Our experience at the PEPline, however, is that the health care workers fears can be substantially greater than the real risk of transmission. Educating the health care worker about the actual risk usually provides genuine reassurance and prevents unrealistic concern
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Health care workers should be tested for hepatitis C infection within two to eight weeks after exposure, an expert panel has recommended. Although the panel doesnt take a position on early treatment of hepatitis C, early testing offers that option.
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Be advised that accreditation surveyors now are looking for signs of implementation of the six patient safety goals established for 2003.
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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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Inspections by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) rose this year, exceeding the agencys goals for enforcement action. Of the 37,493 inspections in FY 2002, 159 occurred at hospitals, resulting in 277 citations. The bloodborne pathogen standard continued to be a major source of enforcement action at hospitals, accounting for the greatest number of citations.
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El Camino Hospital in Mountainview, CA, enlisted the health care workers to create a better ergonomic climate.