-
There is an increasing emphasis in infection control on doing active surveillance cultures and detecting and isolating patients colonized with pathogens such as vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE).
-
Editors note: As this issue of Hospital Infection Control went to press, these studies were presented in Chicago at the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. Look for more in-depth coverage of this conference in our next issue
-
Draft guidelines by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ratchet up increasing infection control and administrative measures depending on whether severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) has appeared globally, within a community, or within a facility.
-
The following questions and answers are summarized with permission from an educational brochure developed at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, NC, for patients who are being placed in contact isolation:
-
While the flap continues over fire safety and placing alcohol hand hygiene dispensers in hospitals, the American Society for Healthcare Engineering (ASHE) has developed some interim guidelines to help infection control professionals.
-
Use of an alcohol-based product was associated with significantly improved hand hygiene in a study of neonatal intensive care units (NICU), a new study had found.
-
-
-
Based on a patients lipoprotein abnormality, the algorithm described in this review begins with achievable, practical therapeutic lifestyle changes and then adds pharmacologic agents in stepwise fashion to address abnormalities of LDL cholesterol, triglycerides, and HDL cholesterol. While the approach is aggressive, it is not based on driving lipid levels to extremely low levels. While some of the lipid targets appear less stringent than conventional wisdom would suggest (eg, accepting an LDL cholesterol target of 130 mg/dL), the approach is in compliance with the spirit and letter of national guidelines.
-
