Hospital Employee Health – June 1, 2023

Tough Love: Returning Injured Workers to Full Duty

There are pressures in today’s healthcare environment to ensure injured or sick workers return to duty, but this must be balanced against their needed recovery time. It takes a delicate combination of compassion and skepticism — and no small amount of detective work — to make the right call.

EPA Moving to Reduce Cancer Risk to HCWs Exposed to EtO Sterilant

Ethylene oxide (EtO) is used on approximately 50% of all sterilized medical devices annually, including an estimated 95% of all surgical kits. EtO can sterilize heat- or moisture-sensitive medical equipment without causing any damage. Proposed regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency are designed to sharply reduce worker exposures to EtO sterilant and prevent occupational cancer.

The Vanishing Nurse: Staff, Patients in Peril

Around 1 million nurses may leave the field in the next few years, leaving the perennial “most trusted” profession absent at the bedside. The exodus was triggered by a pandemic, entrenched by a haphazard response, and then revealed in demographics that indicate the old are retiring and the young are leaving early.

CDC: Be Wary of Travelers From African Outbreaks

Marburg virus has caused outbreaks in two African nations, and healthcare workers should be aware of travel history for incoming patients with classic hemorrhagic fever symptoms.

Healthcare Workers Not Likely Infected, Colonized with C. auris

Recent reports highlighting the continuing increase and geographic spread of Candida auris — a multidrug-resistant fungus that is moving between healthcare facilities — have raised the question of whether healthcare workers could be infected or colonized with the emerging pathogen. It is highly unlikely, but the risk is not zero.