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Timsit et al conducted a 2x2 randomized, controlled trial comparing chlorhexidine-impregnated sponges in the dressing of vascular catheters with control dressings.
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In reviewing the risk of seasonal influenza and the controversial question of health care worker immunization, Thomas Talbot, MD, MPH, paused on a mysterious case study an 'N of 1," if you will, that suggests patients come into hospitals and die of influenza contracted during treatment.
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Infection preventionists and their employee health colleagues undertaking a mandated program to immunize health care workers against flu invariably will run into four groups of people:
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Some infection preventionists have raised concerns about the unintended consequences of contact isolation in hospitals, which are often tied to active screening cultures to detect particular pathogens such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus(MRSA).
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State laws passed in the name of patient safety may straddle infection prevention programs with mandates that ultimately are counterproductive, an infection preventionist warned recently in Fort Lauderdale, FL, at the annual conference of the Association for Prevention of Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC).
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Ah, the good old days when infections were classified as "nosocomial" (hospital-acquired) or not. There wasn't anything else but "we didn't do this thing" or "yes, this is our infection because we gave this to this person at our hospital."
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With the move to "targeting zero" infections and abandoning benchmark ranges comes a new role for the infection preventionists: agent of change.
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Though many infection preventionists are inundated with data reporting requirements and are having difficulty maintaining routine surveillance activities, health care administrators are reluctant to provide them with "data mining" software, the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) reports.
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Multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs) such as those common in staph and enterococci strains are increasingly the cause of infection, prolonged illness and death among a large patient population, The Joint Commission emphasizes in a new report aimed at health care senior leaders.
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IPs today must be willing to learn, willing to change, become tech-savvy, and demonstrate their programs save lives and dollars.
