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While praiseworthy, a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) decision to halt payment on additional costs generated by certain infections should have gone further and included methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a consumer advocacy group argues.
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In what may have had a critical influence on a recent decision to restore enforcement of annual fit-testing in health care settings, more than 50 occupational and environmental health researchers and professors signed a July 17 letter to David Obey, chairman of the Committee on Appropriations in the U.S. House of Representatives.
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For reported tuberculosis cases in the United Sates in 2005 in which the occupation was known, 3.4% were health workers, Hospital Infection Control has learned.
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Now that annual fit-testing in back on the compliance books, a little refresher may be in order. The following information on respirator fit-testing in health care settings is summarized from guidance by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA):
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Infection control professionals in New Jersey are hoping a series of upcoming meetings with state officials will clarify exactly what is required under a recently passed law codifying active surveillance cultures [ASC] for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
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While it's easy to get caught up in exotic pathogens and novel transmission routes, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is re-emphasizing that standard precautions remains the bedrock of infection prevention in health care settings.
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The Joint Commission has proposed standards revisions that could weaken infection control programs "significantly at a time when health care associated infections (HAIs) are receiving increasing attention by legislators, payers, and consumers," the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) warns.
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Amid the swirl of airborne threats such as pandemic flu and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB), the prevailing political winds finally have shifted as well.
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It's time for a new mask. Neither surgical masks nor industrial respirators were ever designed to prevent airborne occupational infections in health care workers, though that is the role they have haphazardly evolved to fill, laments Michael Bell, MD, medical epidemiologist in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's division of healthcare quality promotion.
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The Joint Commission's new standard requiring hospitals to offer influenza vaccine to health care workers is showing some signs of initial impact, but the first real test will be the 2007-2008 flu season.
