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The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations has issued new infection control standards for 2005, emphasizing at a conference in Chicago that hospital executives not ICPs are going to have to take ultimate responsibility for enacting them.
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The Joint Commission provides the following answers to frequently asked questions about its 2004 patient safety goal to manage as sentinel events all identified cases of unanticipated death or major permanent loss of function associated with a health care-acquired infections:
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A nosocomial outbreak of a novel strain of strikingly resistant Acinetobacter baumanii led to two patient deaths before it was eradicated through strict isolation and environmental decontamination, an infection control professional reports.
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At least three similar but distinct strains of community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) are emerging in the United States, rendering common empiric therapy useless and causing aggressive skin infections, Healthcare Infection Prevention has learned.
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A recent patient safety report by an Institute of Medicine committee in Washington, DC, includes the following true firsthand account of a staffing problem leading to a nosocomial infection.
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Emerging infections, bioterrorism, and the patient safety movement are converging along with changes in the health care delivery system to reinvent the role of infection control. But the rising profile of infection control professionals is not necessarily lifting salaries along with it.
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Influenza information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) includes the following answers to common questions about the new live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV).
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With visions of overrun, bankrupt hospitals and workers dying or refusing to treat patients, a recent government-commissioned study of an epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in the United States had everything but a nightmarish cover painting by Hieronymus Bosch.
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Copper-silver ionization in potable waters was found to be highly effective in reducing environmental Legionella colonization and preventing nosocomial Legionnaires disease over prolonged time periods.
