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Meeting with key stakeholders and sterilization groups, the Joint Commission is nearing a landmark consensus position on the long-confusing issue of "flash" sterilization. With various groups already offering slightly differing definitions and interpretations, the Joint Commission tried to clarify its stance last year with a position statement that apparently caused as much confusion as it allayed.
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Like a hurricane downgraded to a tropical depression, H1N1 influenza A has lost its pandemic status and is now just another troublesome flu bug, the World Health Organization reports.
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A hospital employee tests positive on a tuberculin skin test. Should you retest with a blood test to confirm that? An employee tests positive on a TB blood test but works in a low-risk area and has had no known exposures. Should you recommend treatment for latent TB infection?
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Federal health authorities are taking the first tentative steps toward considering a recommendation on mandatory influenza immunization of health care workers.
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The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health offers the following recommendations for employers and employees to prevent bloodborne pathogen exposures among paramedics and other emergency workers:
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If you want employees to comply with sharps safety, then their supervisors have to require it. That is a strong message that emerged from a survey of paramedics related to bloodborne pathogen exposures.
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In new guidelines for Interferon Gamma Release Assays (IGRAs), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers these recommendations.
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Hospitals are not the "safe havens" they once were. That is the cautionary message of a recent Sentinel Event Alert by the Joint Commission accrediting body, which focuses on attacks on patients.
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In a Sentinel Event Alert, The Joint Commission offered the following recommendations for reducing the risk of violence in hospitals: