Hospital Infection Control & Prevention
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CDC Halts HICPAC to Review Masks, N95s, Long COVID
Citing pushback from stakeholder groups, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rejected new recommendations for air transmission precautions by its infection control advisory panel, asking it to consider with expert consultation this question: “Should N95 respirators be recommended for all pathogens that spread by the air?”
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AI: Friend or Foe to IP & C, Healthcare Epidemiology?
Artificial intelligence chatbots, such as Chat Generative Pre-training Transformer (ChatGPT), are thought to have potential to eventually replace some straightforward infectious disease consultations. However, current technology does not yet instill confidence that the use of chatbots will be adequately accurate or safe for complex patient care. In addition, philosophical and ethical constraints raise doubt about the value of replacing specialist physician consultations.
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Denying Religious Exception Proves Costly in Flu Mandate
The line between religious exemption and discrimination was brightly drawn recently by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Faced with an EEOC lawsuit regarding an employee denied a religious exemption, an Atlanta pediatric facility settled a religious discrimination lawsuit by agreeing to pay a fired employee $45,000.
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Toothbrushing to Prevent Pneumonia
Oral care, including time-honored toothbrushing, may save a patient’s life from pneumonia of all stripes.
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Next Pandemic: IPs, Drug Stewards Have Key Roles
Infection preventionists and antibiotic stewards struggled mightily during the height of the pandemic, largely overwhelmed like the rest of the healthcare system. No doubt they prevented some of the impact, but it was a losing effort and those results spoke to their importance as much as any success.
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Vaccination Can Prevent or Lessen Long COVID
Could long COVID — a horrific condition anyone would want to avoid — shake people out of the malaise of vaccine apathy, if not outright distrust? Evidence is accumulating that receiving the COVID-19 vaccination before being initially infected with SARS-CoV-2 can significantly reduce the risk of long COVID in children and adults.
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COVID Resurges Amid Pandemic Fatigue, Anemic Vaccine Uptake
As more hospitals nationally go to universal masking for patient care, we see the other side of an incoming problem: Only 19% of adults older than 18 years of age have received the latest vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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Double Trouble: Vaccines Lag, Virulent Mpox Clade 1 Spreads
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released two health advisory alerts only a week apart, one dealing with the “urgent need” to vaccinate people for seasonal respiratory viruses; the second warning that a virulent type of mpox (monkeypox) virus is spreading in Africa.
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The IP Role in Sepsis
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued core elements for hospital sepsis programs, calling for a multidisciplinary team to prevent, detect, and treat these life-threatening systemic breakdowns.
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MRSA: Isolation and Contact Precautions Still Needed?
The authors of a new study question the merits of isolation and contact precautions for patients with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.