Infection Control Today Magazine

Isolation

ED Visits Result in Infections for Elderly LTC Residents

Elderly patients who have visited an emergency department (ED) are three times more likely to develop respiratory or gastrointestinal infections in the week following their return to a long-term care facility, such as a Centre d'Hébergement de Soins de Longue Durée (CHLSD). ...More
3 weeks ago
Posted in News
Study Finds Patient Isolation Associated With Hospital Delirium

A new study finds that patients who are moved into isolation during a hospital stay are nearly twice as likely to develop delirium, a potentially dangerous change in mental status that often affects hospital patients. Patients who began their stay in isolation were not at ...More
December 12, 2011
Posted in News, PPE & Standard Precautions
Researchers Examine Isolation's Effect on MRSA Transmission

Many studies have examined methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) control measures, but few have been planned prospective single intervention studies in the endemic setting. Researchers from the Victorian Infectious Diseases Service of Royal Melbourne Hospital ...More
July 6, 2011
Posted in News, PPE & Standard Precautions
A Liberal Isolation Policy and MRSA Surveillance

In a presentation at the International Conference on Prevention & Infection Control (ICPIC) held in Geneva, Switzerland. from June 29 through July 2, 2011, researchers from the hygiene team of the Rehabilitation Centre Inkendaal in Vlezenbeek, Belgium reported that ...More
July 5, 2011
Posted in News, PPE & Standard Precautions
Duct Tape Strategy Improves Infection Prevention

A simple roll of duct tape has proven to be an inexpensive solution to the costly and time-consuming problem of communicating with hospital patients who are isolated with dangerous infections. A 504-bed Midwestern health system saved up to 2,700 hours and $110,000 a year by ...More
June 27, 2011
Posted in News, PPE & Standard Precautions
Control Measures Helped Prevent Spread of CRKP

Matan J. Cohen, MD, MPH, of the Center for Clinical Quality and Safety at Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center in Jerusalem, and colleagues, report in the latest issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology that patient cohorting, supplemented by widespread ...More
June 21, 2011
Posted in News, PPE & Standard Precautions
Screening, Isolation Can Help Curb MRSA

Screening and isolation are central components of hospital methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) control policies, but their prevention of patient-to-patient spread depends on minimizing undetected and unisolated MRSA-positive patient days. Estimating these ...More
October 12, 2010
Posted in News, PPE & Standard Precautions
Infection Control Measures Rely on Personal Commitment From HCWs

Researchers say that while isolation and hand hygiene are important to help curb the transmission of pathogenic organisms, compliance with these infection control measures rely largely on a personal commitment to them by healthcare professionals. Cheng, et al. (2010) report ...More
September 10, 2010
Posted in News, Hand Hygiene, PPE & Standard Precautions
Isolation: Fighting Infection but Alienating Patients?

I encourage you to read and ponder a recent essay in The New York Times written by Abigail Zuger, MD, an infectious disease physician in Manhattan. In "Isolation, an Ancient and Lonely Practice, Endures," Zuger describes the ordeal that contact isolation has become in ...More
September 2, 2010
Posted in Blog, PPE & Standard Precautions
Not All Patients with VRE Need to be Isolated

While vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) have triggered multiple outbreaks, VRE of genotype vanC appear not to be associated with outbreaks, according to Sutter, et al. (2010). ...More
August 24, 2010
Posted in News