-
A population-based telephone survey was conducted among residents < 20 years of age in Antelope Valley, CA, from 2000 through 2006. During this period, 459 evaluable cases of herpes zoster among persons < 20 years of age were reported.
-
National health care reform must include a quality component including preventing health care-associated infections if it is to become an effective and affordable reality, Mark R. Chassin, MD, president of The Joint Commission, notes in a commentary posted on the Joint Commission web site (http://www.jointcommission.org).
-
The Joint Commission takes on the controversial issue of decolonization of patients carrying multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs) in a new report aimed at health care CEOs.
-
The Joint Commission is calling on health care administrators to take the lead in preventing infections with multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs), reminding them that current patient safety goals require CEOs to take responsibility for implementing programs to prevent these deadly and costly outcomes.
-
With recession-driven budget cuts being only the latest example, the field of hospital epidemiology and infection prevention has faced numerous threats and ominous predictions of its impending doom.
-
(Editor's note: Carol LaChance, RN, infection preventionist at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, ME, has been in the field three years. With a background of 24 years in nursing, she has found the switch to an IP position difficult but empowering. We recently asked her five key questions.)
-
Pregnant women appear to be particularly vulnerable to H1N1 influenza A virus and will be the top priority to receive a vaccine expected to be available this fall against the pandemic strain, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recently recommended.
-
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to issue a ruling by Oct. 1 on whether health care workers should wear surgical masks or N95 respirators when treating patients infected with H1N1 influenza A.
-
In a likely prelude to a battle royal over mandating a swine flu vaccine, the New York State Health Department overrode nursing union protests recently in enacting an emergency regulation requiring seasonal flu shots for frontline health care workers.
-