Hospital Employee Health – May 1, 2010
May 1, 2010
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SHEA: To protect patients, test viral load of infected health care workers
Do some health care workers infected with HIV or hepatitis B or C pose a risk to their patients? Should they be restricted from performing exposure-prone procedures? -
SHEA identifies invasive, exposure-prone procedures
New Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) guidelines for health care workers infected with bloodborne viruses include the following procedures at greatest risk of transmission to patients. -
Infected HCWs should agree to IC training, twice-yearly tests
According to a new guideline from the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, the following recommendations apply to health care workers infected with HIV or hepatitis B or C -
Engage surgeons to protect selves, patients
Janine Jagger, PhD, MPH, director of the International Health Care Worker Safety Center at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, offered this perspective on the new guideline from the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America -
Hospitals must decide which workers to test
At the Infected Health Care Worker Program in the Minnesota Department of Health, nurse specialist Stephen Moore, RN, MPH, has a case load of 150 health care workers who have HIV, hepatitis B or C. Some are administrators not involved in patient care. Only about 20 are nurses, doctors, or dentists who perform invasive procedures that are considered exposure-prone according to a 1991 guideline from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -
Questions raised about TB blood tests
Nine years after the Food and Drug Administration approved the first blood test to detect latent tuberculosis infection, hospitals are still struggling to determine how to use the tests or whether to use them at all -
Vigilant IC stops spread norovirus 'stomach flu'
A wave of the "stomach flu" can be like a tsunami of gastrointestinal illness, affecting patients and health care workers alike. It takes vigilant hand hygiene, cleaning, and use of personal protective equipment to control and prevent hospital outbreaks, says Tara MacCannell, PhD, a health care epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion. -
PAPRs end frustration of fit-test failures
At DuBois (PA) Regional Medical Center, employees were failing N95 fit tests in alarming numbers. In the cardiology department, about 46% of employees failed fit-tests even after trying a variety of models and sizes. Things weren't much better in anesthesia (35%), cardiovascular ICU (34%), or the emergency department (26%). -
CDC director: Hospital infections 'unacceptable'
The staggering burden of heath care associated infections (HAIs) in lives and dollars is "unacceptable," but changing the status quo is difficult because the health care system is woefully skewed toward treatment rather than prevention, Thomas Frieden, MD, MPH, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said recently in Atlanta at the opening of the Fifth Decennial International Conference on HAIs.