News

Despite major efforts to keep operating rooms sterile, surgical wound infections remain a serious and stubborn problem, killing up to 8,200 patients a year in the U.S. A study by Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) researchers suggests that narrow-spectrum ultraviolet (UV) light could dramatically reduce such infections without damaging human tissue. The study, conducted in tissue culture, was published today in the journal PLOS ONE.

A new type of antibiotic called a PPMO, which works by blocking genes essential for bacterial reproduction, successfully killed a multidrug-resistant germ common to healthcare settings, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers report.

Entomologists in the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture, Food and Environment have developed a new control method for mosquitoes. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently granted a permit to begin field trials. The biological control method targets the Asian tiger mosquito; it is the first of its kind in the nation.

Between 2 million and 3 million pilgrims are expected to tour the holy places of Mecca and Medina during the next three days to perform the Hajj, a religious pilgrimage that every Muslim should undertake at least once in his/her lifetime. This represents an enormous organizational challenge related to the provision of healthcare.

More than 30 years after the advent of HIV/AIDS, healthcare workers are still lacking in awareness, education and training about the threat of bloodborne pathogen exposure from needlesticks and other sharps-related injuries. Joining other notable sharps safety and occupational health experts across the country in championing an ongoing safety agenda is Mary Foley, PhD, RN, chairperson of the non-profit organization Safe in Common (SIC). Foley is the director of the Center for Nursing Research and Innovation at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) School of Nursing. A registered nurse for more than 35 years, Foley was one of the first healthcare workers to combat the emerging HIV-AIDS epidemic during her work at Saint Francis Memorial Hospital in San Francisco during the 1980s.

Loyola University Medical Center recently grabbed national headlines when a top official released results of a study that said mandatory flu vaccines for healthcare workers don't produce a "mass exodus" of employees. While sporadic healthcare systems nationwide have fired workers for refusing flu shots, requiring workers to get the vaccine doesn't lead to a rash of employee resignations.