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Imagine a communitywide outbreak so pervasive that employees fell ill at work, 40% called in sick, and even the chief nursing executive pitched in to work as a staff nurse. This sounds like a scenario from a pandemic influenza drill — but it actually was a real-life episode of norovirus at Missouri Baptist Hospital - Sullivan, a rural hospital about 70 miles from St. Louis.
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Experts in chemical hazards are cautioning health and safety officials to maintain a high level of protective measures with ortho-phthalaldehyde (OPA). The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has launched a two-year, multihospital study to investigate the potential hazards associated with OPA.
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What do you do if . . . you're the only employee health professional for a work force of several thousand employees? Or there is no occupational health physician for you to work with? Or you're trained in infection control but expected to know about occupational medicine?
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Sharps safety finally may permeate the nation's operating rooms, the last bastion of resistance in American hospitals.
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In October, influenza vaccination campaigns will start up once again as hospitals try to improve on a generally dismal performance in immunizing health care workers. Facilities have used various strategies to make the flu vaccine more accessible and convenient and to educate health care workers about its importance.
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In a controversial provision in sweeping health care reform legislation, Pennsylvania is requiring the testing of health care workers who are exposed to patients with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
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The newly revised "Important Message From Medicare" is being treated as a public relations opportunity at Stevens Hospital in Edmonds, WA, where the case management department turned added requirements into a way to "sell" its discharge planning services to Medicare patients.
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About 92% of hospitals surveyed in 2003 and 2004 had revised their emergency response plans since Sept. 11, 2001, according to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
