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Caution prevailed over urgency as hospitals slowly began implementing the smallpox vaccination program in February. By taking extra safeguards and strictly limiting the health care workers receiving the vaccine, they hoped to avoid the adverse effects associated with the vaccine.
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Back injuries are second only to the common cold as a cause of absenteeism. And they are more than four times more common in health care than in other industries. After noting those facts, a new web resource offers basic information about ergonomics and links to dozens of other resources.
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Exposures to bloodborne pathogens can be frightening. Our experience at the PEPline, however, is that the health care workers fears can be substantially greater than the real risk of transmission. Educating the health care worker about the actual risk usually provides genuine reassurance and prevents unrealistic concern
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Health care workers should be tested for hepatitis C infection within two to eight weeks after exposure, an expert panel has recommended. Although the panel doesnt take a position on early treatment of hepatitis C, early testing offers that option.
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A patient with group A streptococcal respiratory and soft tissue infection was the source of an outbreak involving 24 health care workers.
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West Nile virus is emerging as a new threat to laboratory workers as its presence grows in the United States. Infection control precautions should be reemphasized in light of two occupational cases of West Nile virus infection in research laboratorians, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) emphasizes.
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The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations has sent out a sentinel alert to all accredited facilities calling for them to report fatal nosocomial infections. The request for data has raised concerns among infection control professionals, who argue that ascribing deaths to infections is a complex matter confounded by underlying illness and a host of other variables.
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Effective Jan. 1, 2003, all Joint Commission Accreditation of Healthcare Organization organizations will be surveyed for implementation of the recommendations or of an acceptable alternative. Alternatives must be at least as effective as the published recommendations in achieving the goals.
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The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations is partnering with three other organizations to conduct a study that will examine hospitals timely use of antibiotics before and after cardiovascular, joint replacement, and hysterectomy surgeries to effectively reduce post-surgical infection.
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Though recent research supports the need for more infection control staffing than traditionally allotted, ICPs are not expected to press for a specific staffing requirement from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations.