Infection Control Today Magazine

Bloodstream Infections

Zero Tolerance for Infections: A Winning Strategy

“Zero tolerance” is quickly becoming the new watchword in infection prevention, as the concept of striving for zero infiltrates U.S. hospital staffs as they strive to meet new pay-for-performance mandates from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), this fall ...More
January 24, 2008
Posted in Articles
Hospital Eliminates Dangerous Bloodstream Infections in ICU

HERRIMAN, Utah -- A California hospital's innovative clinical protocol eliminated a potentially deadly infection for more than a year, according to an article in the December issue of the Journal of the Association for Vascular Access (JAVA). The hospital's success at ...More
January 21, 2008
Posted in News
BD Announces FDA 510(k) Clearance of Two-Hour Test to Identify Superbug in Patients with Positive Blood Cultures

SAN DIEGO -- BD Diagnostics, a segment of BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company) announces today that it received clearance from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the BD GeneOhm(TM) StaphSR assay. This new assay is the first test available to rapidly and simultaneously ...More
January 2, 2008
Posted in News
World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Patient Safety Seeks Comment on Proposed New International Patient Safety Solutions

OAKBROOK TERRACE, Ill. -- The WHO Collaborating Centre for Patient Safety and the WHO World Alliance for Patient Safety today invited health ministries, healthcare provider organizations, healthcare professionals, patient safety advocates, consumers and other interested ...More
December 19, 2007
Posted in News
APIC Launches “Targeting Zero” Initiative to Eradicate Infections Deemed Preventable by CMS

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- -- The Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) today announce a series of new educational initiatives aimed at eliminating healthcare-associated infections (HAIs), which include Clostridium difficile-associated disease ...More
December 18, 2007
Posted in News
Public Reporting of HAIs: Where Do We Stand Now?

When a patient at a healthcare facility gets an infection, staff members are expected to immediately mobilize resources to stop it. But not all healthcare organizations are on the same page when it comes to addressing the problem of how many such infections occur in the ...More
August 1, 2007
Posted in Articles
FDA Clears Latest Version of Central Venous Catheter from Cook Inc.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Cook Inc. announces that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared the company's new five-lumen central venous catheter designed to both improve multiple treatment administration and provide increased protection against hospital-based ...More
July 25, 2006
Posted in News
CAUTIs:

Catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) can have a significant impact on U.S. healthcare organizations. One study showed a mean extra cost of $589 per CAUTI due to diagnostic and medication expenses.1 Given the frequency of these infections, costs can add up ...More
June 30, 2006
Posted in Articles
Study Shows Superiority of Venetec's StatLock for Securing Arterial Catheters

SAN DIEGO – A newly published study shows that the StatLock Arterial Select catheter securement device, made by Venetec International, reduces dislodgements and unscheduled restarts of arterial catheters by nearly 49 percent -- making patients safer and protecting ...More
October 20, 2005
Posted in News
Expert Discusses Strategies to Prevent CAUTIs

Expert Discusses Strategies to Prevent CAUTIs ICT spoke with Rabih Darouiche, MD, professor and director of the Center for Prostheses Infection at Baylor College of Medicine, regarding strategies for preventing catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs). ICT: How ...More
June 1, 2005
Posted in Articles