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In 2009, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) launched an oversight and survey program for ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) as a requirement to participate in Medicare including a stringent set of infection control regulations. Experts in the field, however, say the CMS regulations sometimes create confusion among infection preventionists at ASCs.

More than 200,000 people are hospitalized from flu-related complications each year,(1) with January and February marking peak flu season in the United States. Cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy are at higher risk of health complications at this time of year due to their weakened immune system. In 2009 alone, approximately 330,000 patients with cancer in the U.S. were admitted to the hospital for serious infectious complications. Today, on CDCs Safe Healthcare blog, Alice Guh, MD, MPH, an infectious disease doctor and medical officer at the CDC, answers questions on how cancer patients can help better protect themselves during flu season.

CNN is reporting today that hospital officials from Novant Health Forsyth Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C. are notifying 18 neurosurgery patients that they might have been exposed to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD).