Hospital Infection Control & Prevention
RSSArticles
-
Bioethics panel: After chaotic Ebola response, IPs should be key players in future outbreaks
A bioethics panel report on the response to the Ebola outbreak gave a ringing endorsement to infection preventionists, saying in times of a public health crisis U.S. policy should provide “this group the support to act to the fullest extent of their licensure and abilities.”
-
Empowered nurse practitioners in ID medicine?
In the wake of Ebola, other emerging infectious diseases, common HAIs, and an ever-expanding array of reporting requirements and regulations, infection preventionists and their infectious disease colleagues are too often short-staffed and stretched to the breaking point.
-
Nurse infected with Ebola blasts hospital in suit
A lawsuit by Nina Pham, RN, against Texas Health Resources includes some explosive allegations regarding her occupational Ebola infection after caring for an infected patient at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas in early October 2014.
-
National Action Plan: Five goals to best the bugs
The White House recently released a national action plan that calls for “aggressive action” to move the nation towards major reductions in the incidence of urgent and serious drug-resistant threats including carbapenem resistant Enterobacteriaceae, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and Clostridium difficile. Here are key goals and strategies in the pla.:
-
National antibiotic action plan targets top threats
The recently issued “National Action Plan for Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria” includes goals to be achieved by 2020.
-
D-Day: Unprecedented national plan aims to save the antibiotic era
Antibiotic stewardship to rein in the rampant misuse and overuse of drugs is a national priority involving the highest levels of the federal government.
-
CDC: Only one confirmed occupational HIV infection in a U.S. health care worker since 2000
In the 1980s when HIV infection was tantamount to a death sentence, health care workers bravely took care of the first epidemic waves of AIDs patients.
-
Hospital goes high tech, improves hand hygiene
An Alabama hospital greatly improved hand hygiene compliance and significantly reduced health care associated infections (HAIs) after installing an automated hand-hygiene monitoring system.
-
CDC, ECRI Institute devise culturing protocols for duodenoscopes to prevent CRE infection
Responding to a series of outbreaks of CRE (carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae) linked to duodenoscopes, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has developed an interim protocol for culturing the devices before use to create a greater of margin of safety for patients.
-
Hospitals moving on antibiotic stewardship, but outpatient settings have a more difficult task
The analogy between antibiotic resistance and climate change is an apt one in the sense that both require a local and a global response. Flagrant antibiotic prescribing in outpatient settings, for example can certainly undermine a judicious hospital response in the grand scheme of things. Similarly, what good is it if one country fights to save fading antibiotic efficacy but another nation passes out pills like candy. More on that later, but first the outpatient problem.