Hospital Employee Health – February 1, 2016
February 1, 2016
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Ebola aftershock: HCWs suffer lingering symptoms
U.S. healthcare workers who survived Ebola after acquiring it from patients have suffered a wide variety of symptoms and maladies, with only one survivor considered symptom-free at five months after discharge, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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Patients alarmed after newborns exposed to TB
A California hospital continues a high-stakes tuberculosis follow-up of more than 350 newborns exposed to an infected healthcare worker. With testing reliability questionable in such infants, the babies are essentially being treated empirically with isoniazid for a TB strain that is susceptible to the first line drug.
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TB Q&A for patients after exposure incidents
As part of notifying patients of a possible TB exposure to an infected employee, Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San Jose, CA, issued the following “frequently asked questions” TB information for patients. Employee health professionals may want to consider something like this should they find themselves facing a similar situation:
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VA hospital system may mandate staff flu shots
With a new study finding that virtually none of the nation’s 150 Veterans Health Administration hospitals have mandatory flu shot policies for healthcare workers — leaving vaccination rates languishing in the 55% range — the VA system is considering a vaccine mandate to protect patients and coworkers, Hospital Employee Health has learned.
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Defuse hostile nursing work culture by speaking up immediately, directly
Listening to human resources expert Laura MacLeod, LMSW, describe the dysfunctional work cultures she has observed in healthcare and other industries, one is immediately reminded of the truism: “Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.”
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Physician flameout: It’s time to heal the healers
American medicine is nearing a tipping point with physicians that could adversely affect broader populations of both patients and healthcare workers. More than half of U.S. physicians are experiencing professional burnout and the problem is getting worse, researchers report.
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A burnout barometer to assess your work culture
The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses’ has created tools to address issues associated with a healthy work environment, including burnout and “compassion fatigue,” available at http://www.aacn.org/.