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The Joint Commission's 2009 patient safety goal regarding multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs) includes the following key provisions and deadlines:
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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.
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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.
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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.
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(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.)
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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).
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With more hospitals in recent years considering mandatory seasonal flu immunizations for health care workers, the rise and highly anticipated seasonal resurgence of H1N1 influenza A raises a compelling question: Will the first pandemic in 41 years add momentum to increasing calls to make flu immunization a condition of health care employment?
