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At least three similar but distinct strains of community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) are emerging in the United States, rendering common empiric therapy useless and causing aggressive skin infections, Healthcare Infection Prevention has learned.
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A nosocomial outbreak of a novel strain of strikingly resistant Acinetobacter baumanii led to two patient deaths before it was eradicated through strict isolation and environmental decontamination, an infection control professional reports.
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The Joint Commission provides the following answers to frequently asked questions about its 2004 patient safety goal to manage as sentinel events all identified cases of unanticipated death or major permanent loss of function associated with a health care-acquired infections:
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The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations has issued new infection control standards for 2005, emphasizing at a conference in Chicago that hospital executives not ICPs are going to have to take ultimate responsibility for enacting them.
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Infection control is one of the key areas cited in a recent national report warning that nursing staffing problems pose a grave threat to patient safety.
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The heat is off of nursing homes or at least turned down from a boil to simmer. Occupational Safety and Health (OSHA) administrator John Henshaw announced that the National Emphasis Program for nursing homes has ended.
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Why do so few health care workers get the flu vaccine each year? What can be done about it?
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Time is money when an employee is injured and cant return to work. Besides the financial burden for the employer in temporary disability payments, medical costs, and extra staffing, rehabilitation actually can suffer as employees stay idle at home.
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Long-term exposure to ethylene oxide (EtO), even at permissible levels, may be putting hospital workers at increased risk for breast cancer, recent studies suggest.