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In October, influenza vaccination campaigns will start up once again as hospitals try to improve on a generally dismal performance in immunizing health care workers. Facilities have used various strategies to make the flu vaccine more accessible and convenient and to educate health care workers about its importance.
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In a controversial provision in sweeping health care reform legislation, Pennsylvania is requiring the testing of health care workers who are exposed to patients with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
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Hospitals are feeling even greater pressure to ask health care workers to sign declination statements if they don't receive the influenza vaccine.
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Updated guidelines designed to prevent nosocomial transmission of diseases inject some new uncertainties in the efforts to protect health care workers.
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Annual fit-testing is once again the unqualified rule for tuberculosis. A Congressional caveat that prohibited the U.S. Occupational Safety and Administration from using federal funds to enforce the annual fit-testing rule for TB has been defeated in the House of Representatives.
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How do you prove the value created by the employee health service? Perhaps you can show a reduction in injury rates or workers comp claims.
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The Joint Commission's new standard requiring hospitals to offer influenza vaccine to health care workers is showing some signs of initial impact, but the first real test will be the 2007-2008 flu season.
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The Joint Commission has added a new patient safety goal for 2008 that allows hospitals to comply with hand hygiene guidelines by the World Health Organization.
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The severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic pointed out the need for better source control among patients, visitors and health care workers with respiratory infections.
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Choosing a respirator is partly a matter of numbers. Each one has a rating for its filtration and seal, which reveals how much of the contaminated ambient air would still reach the lungs.
