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Multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs) such as those common in staph and enterococci strains are increasingly the cause of infection, prolonged illness and death among a large patient population, The Joint Commission emphasizes in a new report aimed at health care senior leaders.
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Though many infection preventionists are inundated with data reporting requirements and are having difficulty maintaining routine surveillance activities, health care administrators are reluctant to provide them with "data mining" software, the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) reports.
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Perhaps no American in medicine is more synonymous with hand hygiene than Elaine Larson, RN, PhD, FAAN, CIC, associate dean for research at the Columbia School of Nursing in New York City. Larson has authored scores of papers on the cardinal principle of infection prevention.
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Recent outbreaks of hepatitis C are a wake-up call to boost infection control practices, particularly in outpatient settings. But they also underscore the prevalence of HCV and the continued occupational risk to health care workers.
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The Centers for Disease Control continues to reassess its infection control guidelines for pandemic influenza A H1N1, but has held to a controversial N95 respirator recommendation due to the possibility of airborne spread that would make standard surgical masks ineffective, said Michael Bell, MD, associate director for Infection Control in the CDC Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion.
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Health care workers or public health workers who were not using appropriate personal protective equipment during close contact with an ill confirmed, probable, or suspect case of swine-origin influenza A (H1N1) virus infection during the case's infectious period are indicated for post-exposure antiviral chemoprophylaxis with either oseltamivir or zanamivir, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends.
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As it became clear to many public health departments and infection preventionists that H1N1 influenza was acting more like a seasonal influenza virus than a pandemic strain, many broke with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and downgraded infection control measures accordingly.
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Though Chicago is roughly 1,700 miles from Mexico City the epicenter of the H1N1 influenza A outbreak it didn't take long for the virus to get there when warnings of a possible pandemic began coming out.
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In the turbulent days after 9/11 and the anthrax attacks, during the buildup to war in Iraq, the federal government undertook an ambitious plan to vaccinate half a million health care workers against smallpox.
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If you have not encountered bewilderment surrounding responsibility lines with the implementation of new guidelines, regulations, or corporate-driven initiatives concerning infection prevention, you will.
