-
The nation's leading infection prevention groups are urging President Barack Obama to halt federal enforcement of a mandate that health care workers wear N95 respirators to treat H1N1 pandemic patients.
-
Talk about peer review. Rarely do medical researchers have their specific papers described to the president of the United States, but that is the case for two studies playing a central role in the national furor over surgical masks vs. respirators for H1N1 protection.
-
The American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) has issued a position statement on H1N1 pandemic influenza A that endorses and reiterates the key findings of an Institute of Medicine panel that recommended N95 respirators for health care workers. Key points stressed by AIHA include:
-
Infection prevention is a top priority of an ambitious new quality improvement effort that could lead to new accreditation standards for the nation's hospitals, says Mark R. Chassin, MD, MPP, MPH, president of The Joint Commission.
-
A misguided federal mandate that health care workers don N95 respirators to treat known or suspect H1N1 influenza A patients is critically undermining the medical response to the first pandemic in four decades, clinicians tell Hospital Infection Control & Prevention.
-
Particulate respirators a controversial step beyond common surgical masks are now mandated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to protect health care workers from acquiring H1N1 pandemic influenza A from patients.
-
A hand hygiene project launched at The Joint Commission's Center for Transforming Healthcare cites the following problems and solutions on hand hygiene:
-
The fact that The Joint Commission had to recently issue a Sentinel Event Alert underscoring leadership's critical role in patient safety and quality care is "somewhat sad," notes Ronald B. Goodspeed, MD, MPH, FACP, FACPE, an instructor on health care management in the department of health policy and management, Harvard School of Public Health and former president of the Massachusetts Coalition for the Prevention of Medical Errors.
-
Looking at the historically low compliance numbers surrounding hand hygiene, Stephen Weber, MD, Joint Commission consultant and chief health care epidemiologist at the University of Chicago Medical Center, can only shake his head.
-
A witch's brew of apathy, fear, and misinformation about the H1N1 influenza A vaccine may cause considerable toil and trouble for clinicians responding to the first pandemic in four decades.
