Hospital Infection Control & Prevention – November 1, 2010
November 1, 2010
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Special Report: MRSA Patient Stories
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Patient stories: MRSA is gut-wrenchingly humanized, and lawmakers are listening
In numbers whose precise appearance veils the reality that they are estimates and underestimates at that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 94,360 people in the United States acquired invasive MRSA infections in 2005 and 18,650 of them died. -
Friend of victim becomes MRSA lawyer
The family and friends of MRSA victims are sometimes galvanized to action by the death of a loved one. One of them is Tara Hopper, who became a lawyer and MRSA activist after she watched her best friend Elizabeth Ann Reilly fall to the bacterial infection in the prime of her short life. -
MRSA patients, in their own words
The following are personally submitted accounts to the MRSA Survivors Network (http://www.mrsasurvivors.org) Though edited slightly for spelling and grammar, they are left in the words of the patients. -
Near death leads to a life of MRSA advocacy
In 2003, Jeanine Thomas of Hinesdale, IL, founded the MRSA Survivors Network, the organization which successfully lobbied to have Oct. 2 declared World MRSA Day and October World MRSA Month. A tireless activist for MRSA awareness, Thomas recently sat down with Hospital Infection Control & Prevention for the following interview. -
The needlestick that changed her life
Karen Daley, PhD, MPH, RN, FAAN, remembers the stick as if it happened in slow-motion, the details still clear to her 12 years later. She had helped a co-worker draw blood from a patient in the emergency department. She turned to reach behind her for the sharps container. Mounted high on the wall, it was overfilled, but she couldn't see it well because it was above eye level. -
CDC: Monitor HCWs for flu symptoms
During last year's H1N1 influenza pandemic, health care workers inadvertently transmitted flu to their co-workers, in some cases triggering a hospital-based outbreak. -
The Joint Commission revises NPSGs
While The Joint Commission will have no new National Patient Safety Goals (NPSGs) for 2011, it has revised elements of performance (EPs) within those goals to remove specific requirements related to clinical practice. The changes to the EPs are effective immediately.