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As the USA300 strain of community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) increasingly besieges hospitals and displaces traditional nosocomial strains the widely held perception is that patient outcomes are going to suffer.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is actively investigating the issue of Clostridium difficile in retail meat, and for apparently the first time has published concerns about the issue as a possible cause for unexplained C. diff cases in the community.
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Infection control professionals should heighten suspicion for measles and know the immune status of health care workers after a literal rash of imported cases nationally has resulted in nosocomial transmission to patients and considerable chaos at hospitals.
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This is an excerpt from the memorandum sent to all University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), employees at 9:20 a.m. on Jan. 31, 2008, by chief compliance and privacy officer Carole A. Klove:
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A government laptop computer containing sensitive medical information on 2,500 patients enrolled in a National Institutes of Health (NIH) study was stolen in February, according to a recent report in The Washington Post.
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As part of his efforts to educate the public about heart health, Frederick Meadors, MD, a cardiothoracic surgeon at St. Vincent Infirmary Medical Center in Little Rock, AR, had planned to perform heart surgery on a patient while 330 people watched the procedure live through a video feed in a hospital auditorium.
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A health provider in Los Angeles that frequently treats celebrities announced recently that it had failed to protect the privacy of singer Britney Spears, and it wasn't the first time.
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Once a privacy breach occurs with a patient's medical records, the risk manager must act quickly and decisively, says Layna Cook, JD, an attorney specializing in health care risk management with the law firm McGlinchey Stafford in Baton Rouge, LA. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) requires mitigation when a violation occurs, Cook notes.
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An elderly woman was admitted to the hospital complaining of constipation and suffering from septic shock. She subsequently suffered an interruption in her gastrointestinal (GI) motor activity, after which she was medicated and transferred to a second hospital for further treatment.
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An infant abduction was quickly solved in part because the hospital used an infant alarm that quickly alerted staff to the kidnapping, according to hospital and police officials in Sanford, FL.