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"I have climbed Mount Rainier five times. Each time I made that tough trek, my risk of dying was about 100 times smaller than the risk I will face on the operating table." Don Berwick, director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)
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Influenza vaccination of healthcare personnel is a professional and ethical responsibility and non-compliance with healthcare facility policies regarding vaccination should not be tolerated, argues the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA).
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If you want employees to comply with sharps safety, then their supervisors have to require it. That is a strong message that emerged from a survey of paramedics related to bloodborne pathogen exposures.
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Infection preventionists should make sure their administrative leaders are aware in a collegial, non-confrontational way of course that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) requires top-level support for infection control programs, advises Connie Steed, RN, BSN, CIC, manager of infection control at the Greenville (SC) Hospital System.
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In response to repeated requests for interviews and information, the Centers for Medicare Services (CMS) agreed to take written questions by Hospital Infection Control & Prevention and circulate them within the agency for answers.
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Meeting with key stakeholders and sterilization groups, the Joint Commission is nearing a landmark consensus position on the long-confusing issue of "flash" sterilization.
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With the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) opening preliminary rulemaking on a national infectious disease standard, infection preventionists pondering the end result of the effort may follow the old admonition, "look to California."
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In the increasingly litigious arena of infection prevention, juries are interpreting recommendations by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as "mandated" standards of care.
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Like a hurricane downgraded to a tropical depression, H1N1 influenza A has lost its pandemic status and is now just another troublesome flu bug as infection preventionists prepare for the annual outbreak season.
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Infection preventionists looking for guidance on discontinuing contact isolation for patients with multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (MDR-Ab) remain in a quandary.