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Cleaning patient's rooms may not seem like the most important job in the hospital. But environmental service workers save lives in their own way by preventing the spread of infections. A new spotlight on their role may boost the resources, communication and training focused on this group of workers.
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Emerging multidrug resistant gram negative bacteria continue to spread across the health care continuum, becoming entrenched in non-acute and long term care settings and threatening vulnerable hospital patients with untreatable infections.
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Key program elements of a patient isolation program at the University of Chicago Medical Center include the following:
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The Joint Commission recently posted the following answer to a frequently asked question on screening for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
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Your annual training in the use of personal protective equipment may not be good enough. According to a study of PPE use during the H1N1 pandemic in Canada, most health care workers don't know how to choose the right items or how to put them on or take them off correctly.
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Your move to an electronic health record (EHR) system will save you time and money while increasing your ... infection rates? How could this happen?
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Growing anti-regulatory pressure in a down economy to say nothing of presidential politics as an election year looms are making it exceeding difficult for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to advance its controversial proposed infectious disease standard to protect health care workers.
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The Joint Commission's new National Patient Safety Goal (NPSG) on preventing indwelling catheter-associated urinary tract infections which emphasizes prompt removal of unnecessary devices and surveillance for CAUTIs is effective January 1, 2012 for hospitals.
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In the latest in a remarkable surge of infection prevention initiatives, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is partnering with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to prevent healthcare associated infections in dialysis facilities.
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[Editor's note: In this issue we continue with the second part of Patti Grant's IP Newbie column that was featured in our September issue. As you may recall, she described an all too common situation: How various professionals in healthcare are expected to participate in activities beyond their original area of expertise. This expectation does not seem so much a direct consequence of the struggling economy as a reflection of the attempt by various specialties to move from "silos" to a team approach to problem solving, Grant noted, observing that "Patient safety will most likely be less precarious in this multi-disciplinary improvement environment, but it can come with hefty growing pains." Of course, as an IP Newbie, you're often the one growing.]
