HAIs

Proper ventilation can greatly reduce the environmental strain on operating rooms. However, there’s no one-size-fits all solution.

Reinfections among study participants most likely occurred outside the hospital setting where workers might let their guard down and not practice nonpharmaceutical mitigation efforts against SARS-CoV-2.

The ability to be an excellent infection preventionist requires lifelong learning and taking the initiative to grow professionally.

Outpatient settings are not like inpatient settings. They have unique requirements and circumstances, including those related to infection prevention and control.

The successful combination of products and the adoption and application of science-based practices will help the sterile processing profession rise above challenges to protecting frontline technicians.

There are many facets to creating smarter, healthier health care spaces through infection control and prevention, but these tips can help generate a cohesive, adaptable and curative plan.

Dental instruments may not seem as invasive as the instruments used in medical surgeries, but they still pose the same dangers.

CDC’s Michael Craig: “Every country is an importer and an exporter of resistance…. And our hope is that this could be a jumpstart to help some of these countries start to build the capacity that is needed everywhere.”

La’Titia Houston MPH, BSN, RN, CIC: “We work not only with the bedside nurses and the sterile processors, but even with our clinicians, our physicians. They want a timeout before the procedure is even performed because they want to ensure that the scope did pass during the high-level disinfection procedure.”

Bug of the Month helps educate readers about existing and emerging pathogens of clinical importance in healthcare facilities today.

Take 5 minutes to catch up on Infection Control Today’s highlights for the week ending November 19.

As part of infection prevention against COVID-19, schools spent millions of federal dollars trying to upgrade ventilation systems. That money has been ill-spent, warn some experts.

One of many presentations at the ISSA Show North America 2021 this week seeks to light an entrepreneurial fire under an old concept.

No health care worker is immune from the dangers of handling sharps. Physicians hold a rate just under that of nurses, mostly related to use of scalpels, but are less likely to report these injuries.

What does the post-COVID-19 future look like for infection preventonists? Great strides in infection prevention have been made because of the COVID-19 response, but look for them to be modified moving forward.

Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) bioluminescence needs technological enhancement if it’s to reach its full potential as a disinfection tool, says a study.

Doe Kley, RN, CIC, MPH,T-CHEST: “We just can’t keep doing what we’ve been doing with our singular focus on one pathogen. We know that while we were doing that—while we were so busy with COVID-19—other really dangerous and emerging pathogens got a foothold. The one that scares me the most is Candida auris.”

Darrel Hicks: “EVS teams work around professionals who are certified—whether it’s respiratory therapists, physical therapists, the RNs, the doctors—and I think if we ever hoped to elevate their status that we need to certify environmental services workers to a certain level of knowledge before they even start cleaning patient rooms.”

The use of almost every antibiotic increases the chances of Clostridioides difficile infection, and that includes the drugs that are used to treat C diff, a study states.

In order of occurrence, the most common types of HAIs are catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI) at 32%; surgical site infection (SSI) at 22%; pneumonia (ventilator-associated pneumonia) at 15%; and central-line associated bloodstream infection (CLABSI) at 14%.

One of the most disturbing features of C auris is that, in its relatively short life, it has rapidly developed resistance to the few available treatment options.

If we want to see sustained improvements in our hospitals, administrators must step in and visibly show their support of IPs while investing their time, resources, and hospital funding to increase the capacity of the IPC department.

Even the most rigorous infection prevention protocols come unraveled if compliance isn’t maintained. The challenge is that for busy health care professionals, remembering when and how to disinfect is just one of many competing tasks in an extremely busy day.

Infection preventionists and other health care providers need masks that can easily be fit-tested or are more moldable to ensure a good seal—Saskia v. Popescu, PhD, MPH, MA, CIC.

Preliminary data for the last quarter of 2020 revealed a jump of 34% in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) compared with the same quarter in 2019. Several states had much higher increases. In Arizona, for instance, rates leapt 80%; in New Jersey, that figure was 99%.