News

The ability to better detect and assess bacteria linked to a form of pneumonia prevalent in hospital intensive care units (ICUs) could soon become possible, according to research reported in the latest issue of the Journal of Biomedical Optics. The journal is published by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics.

This digital issue explores disease caused by emerging infectious threats as well as hospital pathogens, and the interventions – such as hand hygiene, contact precautions and environmental cleaning – that can be used to control and prevent infection transmission.

Infection preventionists (IPs) continue to be consumed with keeping up with evolving infection prevention imperatives, according to an online survey conducted by ICT that asked respondents what they believed were the most important issues facing the entire infection prevention and hospital epidemiology community in 2016. Other top issues on their minds for the new year included addressing antibiotic/antimicrobial resistance, advancing quality improvement and patient safety, addressing emerging pathogens and infectious diseases, and evolving the evidence base to answer unresolved issues.

Hospitals today are increasingly being challenged by rising patient infection rates, especially from “superbugs” such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). And the challenges are only going to increase as new Medicare rules go into effect in 2017 that will include MRSA in all reimbursement calculations – potentially costing hospitals hundreds of millions of dollars in lost Medicare reimbursements.