Hospital Employee Health – September 1, 2015
September 1, 2015
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Can you kill microbes without hurting healthcare workers?
In the battle against healthcare-associated infections, workers have unwittingly become collateral damage, developing skin irritation, headaches, and even asthma from cleaners and disinfectants.
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Rapid onset of asthma in healthcare workers
The following case reports provide examples of work-related asthma from environmental surface cleaning and disinfecting exposures in healthcare.
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NIOSH: Key steps to reduce respiratory risk
The Cleaning and Disinfecting in Healthcare Working Group of NIOSH’s National Occupational Research Agenda offered advice about reducing respiratory hazards related to cleaning and disinfection in hospitals.
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FDA concerned about healthcare workers’ constant exposure to antiseptics
At any given time there must be well over a million nurses and other female healthcare workers of childbearing age protecting patients by killing transient bacteria on the hands with alcohol hand rubs.
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Consumer group challenges FDA exclusion of chlorhexidine in antiseptic review
The Food and Drug Administration is being taken to task for a failure to include chlorhexidine in its recently announced plan to review the safety of active ingredients in antiseptics used in healthcare.
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Removing PPE incorrectly may be common problem
Fewer than one in six healthcare workers followed the correct recommendations for removal of PPE after patient care, likely contaminating themselves and increasing the risk of transmission to others, researchers report.
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The Ebola effect: HCWs working in teams could protect co-workers, patients from other infections
It’s hard to write “silver lining” and “Ebola” in the same sentence, but something powerfully good could come out of the horrific outbreak: a new safety culture in U.S. hospitals that better protects healthcare workers and patients.
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Ebola vaccine highly effective in trials, but worker PPE education still critical
Initial reports of a highly effective Ebola vaccine trial may provide the final piece to douse the simmering, historic outbreak in West Africa.