Superbugs

Study Says Cranberries Provide Urinary Tract Protection for up to Two Years

LAKEVILLE-MIDDLEBORO, Mass. -- According to the National Kidney Foundation, one in five women will develop a urinary tract infection (UTI) during her lifetime, and 20 percent of those will have UTIs on a recurrent basis. The good news is that cranberry research supports not ...More
August 13, 2007
Posted in News
Effective Infection Prevention Programs Include Proactive Measures

Abstract The U.S. healthcare system is burdened with 3.2 billion dollars of added cost each year to battle multi-drug-resistant organisms (MDROs). The two primary organisms are methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE), ...More
July 2, 2007
Posted in Articles
Do You Know Where Your Foley Is?

During the fall of 2004, the Idaho infection control department at Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center (SARMC) in Boise, Idaho, began using a Web-based data-mining software system (MedMined). As a result of using MedMined, it was identified that SARMC’s Urine Nosocomial ...More
July 2, 2007
Posted in Articles
TOC July 2007

Getting to the Point of Sharps Safety Best Practices Facilities Embrace Sharps Safety Plans at Different Speeds and Success Rates By Michelle Beaver Safety Syringes: Is Your Institution Stuck in the Stone Age? By Barbara DeBaun, RN, MSN, CIC Catheters and Infection ...More
July 2, 2007
Posted in Articles
IDSA Urges Congress to Support Hatch Amendment; Provisions Would Counter the Threat of Drug-Resistant Superbugs

The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) is calling on members of Congress to support the "Antibiotic Safety and Innovation" amendment introduced by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) to the Food Drug Administration (FDA) Revitalization Act. Without innovative public policy, ...More
May 1, 2007
Posted in News
Johns Hopkins Begins Aggressive Screening for Superbugs in Children

Infection control and critical care experts at the Johns Hopkins Hospital have ordered testing for the two most common hospital superbugs for every child admitted to its pediatric intensive care unit. The more stringent admission screening methods for methicillin-resistant ...More
April 17, 2007
Posted in News
Most-at-Risk Nursing Home Residents to be Tested for Superbugs

A Johns Hopkins study of adult patients admitted to the Johns Hopkins Hospital showed that patients who resided in nursing homes or other kinds of long-term care facilities at any time within the last six months were far more likely than other adult patients to carry or be ...More
April 17, 2007
Posted in News, PPE & Standard Precautions
The Fight Against UTIs Continues

A healthy person who contracts a urinary tract infection (UTI) certainly has reason to be upset, but when that person is already sick and contracts a UTI from a catheter, the risk and outrage compounds. Data on the estimated cost of catheter-associated UTIs (CAUTIs) ...More
April 2, 2007
Posted in Articles
Busting Bugs in Las Vegas, ICT Style

A heartfelt thank you goes out to all of the infection prevention professionals who joined us in Las Vegas in January for the firstever ICT Conference on Professional Development. It was a three-day learning and laughter fest, where infection control practitioners (ICPs) ...More
March 1, 2007
Posted in Articles
Bad Bugs

In much of life, change is a good thing. But a glaring exception exists — pathogens that continually mutate, creating resistance to the very pharmaceuticals designed to kill them. Their very nature is unfixed, mutable. Certain of these continually stand at the front of the ...More
January 2, 2007
Posted in Articles, PPE & Standard Precautions