-
Concerns regarding patient safety have produced numerous pieces of new legislation focused on infection control surveillance and reporting of antibiotic-resistant organisms in healthcare facilities nationwide.
-
The Joint Commission has strongly endorsed recently issued compendium infection prevention guidelines, announcing that the condensed, actionable recommendations may become required as accreditation standards by 2010.
-
Infection preventionists should continue to make patients their medical and moral compass amid a tightening regulatory environment that includes reimbursement reductions.
-
The condensed guidelines in the recently issued compendium for six major infections emphasize administrative responsibility to provide the resources and infrastructure to make the prevention of health care-associated infections (HAIs) a reality. In this landmark new document at least, infection prevention really is everyone's business.
-
With the recent release of landmark compendium guidelines for prevention of six major health care-associated infections (HAIs), the immediate question is whether these practical, "actionable" guidelines will result in real action.
-
Increasing the possibility of hospital outbreaks via undiagnosed cases, measles infection has hit the United States at epidemic levels this year. More measles cases were reported in the first seven months of 2008 than during the same period in any year since 1996, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
-
Editor's note: Peter J. Pronovost, MD, PhD is a professor in the departments of anesthesiology and critical care, surgery, and health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
-
If infection preventionists can work their way out of the current wilderness of change, there is some feeling they may be poised for a leadership role in a health care system becoming painfully aware of the power of prevention.
-
Joint Commission Resources (JCR) has launched a "Flu Vaccination Challenge" this season targeting health care workers, but organizers only underscored the current woeful situation in setting the immunization goal.
-
Proposed state laws in Nevada in the wake of a highly-publicized hepatitis C outbreak in Las Vegas include proposals to hire infection preventionists (IPs) as consultants to oversee practice in freestanding clinics.