News

Kimberly-Clark Health Care recently crowned the champion of the inaugural Smart-Fold Wrap Races at the International Association of Healthcare Central Service Materiel Management (IAHCSMM) Annual Conference and Expo held in Columbus, Ohio. Naomi Campbell from Brandywine Hospital was declared the fastest sterilization wrapper, beating out central services (CS) professionals from across the United States and Canada. The timed, head-to-head wrapping competition spotlighted how Smart-Fold Sterilization Wrap enhances the skills of CS professionals by enabling them to wrap quickly and efficiently.

Researchers at the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences have devised a bedbug trap that can be built with household items. All you need are two disposable plastic containers, masking tape and glue, says Phil Koehler, UF/IFAS urban entomology professor. The traps catch and collect the bugs when they try to travel between people and the places where bedbugs hide, he adds.

A form of bacteria responsible for respiratory illness, including the deadly pneumonia known as Legionnaire's disease, may be able to grow in windshield washer fluid and was isolated from nearly 75 percent of school buses tested in one district in Arizona, according to research presented today at the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology.

It’s 10 o’clock. The patient is prepped; the doctor is ready for surgery. Do you know where your containers are? Given the increasing complexity of surgical devices, increasing workloads and reduced staffing, there is no wonder that there has been a rise in equipment related issues leading to potential patient safety issues as well as a rise in surgical site and hospital acquired infections.

Methicillinresistant S. aureus (MRSA) is a concern to all healthcare providers as MRSA infections are associated with significant patient morbidity and mortality. MRSA infected patients have nearly twice the mortality rate, longer hospital stays, and higher health costs than those with methicillinsusceptible S. aureus (MSSA) infections. The outcomes for patients surgically infected with MRSA are worse with mortality rates 3.4 times higher than patients surgically infected with MSSA.(1) MRSA colonized or infected patients readily contaminate their surroundings and healthcare personnel with whom they come in contact. Therefore, MRSA prevention in the hospital setting is a critical component of patient and provider safety.

As of May 12, 2014, the Ministry of Health (MOH) of Guinea has reported a cumulative total of 248 clinical cases of Ebola virus disease (EVD), including 171 deaths. Since the last update of May 9, 2014, there have been five new cases confirmed by ebolavirus PCR and no new deaths among the confirmed cases.

The World Health Organization (WHO) reports the following cases of laboratory confirmed Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) have been reported from Jordan, Lebanon, the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States.