-
Federal health authorities are taking the first tentative steps toward considering a recommendation on mandatory influenza immunization of health care workers.
-
A hospital employee tests positive on a tuberculin skin test. Should you retest with a blood test to confirm that? An employee tests positive on a TB blood test but works in a low-risk area and has had no known exposures. Should you recommend treatment for latent TB infection?
-
Like a hurricane downgraded to a tropical depression, H1N1 influenza A has lost its pandemic status and is now just another troublesome flu bug, the World Health Organization reports.
-
Meeting with key stakeholders and sterilization groups, the Joint Commission is nearing a landmark consensus position on the long-confusing issue of "flash" sterilization. With various groups already offering slightly differing definitions and interpretations, the Joint Commission tried to clarify its stance last year with a position statement that apparently caused as much confusion as it allayed.
-
More health care workers received the flu vaccine last season than ever before, but that has not eased the pressure to boost immunization rates. Health care workers who fail to get their flu vaccine increasingly face additional infection control burdens, possible termination or public rebuke.
-
When pilots prepare to take off, they follow an audible checklist. A similar strategy, adapted to health care, helped hospitals around the country reduce central-line-associated bloodstream infections.
-
Masks are sufficient protection for health care workers involved in routine care of patients with H1N1, according to proposed new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Preventing transmission also will depend upon vaccination of health care workers and policies that discourage employees from coming to work sick, the agency said.
-
In its proposed new guidance on Prevention Strategies for Seasonal Influenza in Healthcare Settings, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stresses the need for health care workers to stay home when they're sick. Specifically, the guidance includes these recommendations:
-
The 3M 8000 respirator recalled by the state of California as poorly fitting has passed muster in a review by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). And Cal-OSHA, the state's occupational safety agency, is none too happy about it.
-
Ten years after the Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act was signed into law, the mandate for safer sharps devices is under review both legally and academically.
