Personal Protective Equipment

December 08, 2020

Compare transmission data for patients on contact precautions using the recommended full complement of PPE versus transmissions for patients on contact precautions when PPE was being utilized differently or not at all.

December 02, 2020

When an 850-bed urban hospital fought off COVID-19 in part by having to relax infection prevention protocols, the opportunistic and deadly carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (CRAB) struck.

November 27, 2020

CRAB has chameleon-like tendencies that allow it to absorb material from other organisms, and that allows it to ward off most antibiotics. It’s a Superbug.

November 16, 2020

Faced with greater than three times the number of cases as the last surge, along with exponential growth with no end in sight, there is little hope healthcare workers can safely treat patients without a drastic change in policy and a more productive and secure supply line.

November 03, 2020

Ashish Diwanji: “The personal protective equipment made and sold in the US has to abide by the standards set up by NIOSH …. The PPE made and sold from China do adhere to the Chinese standards, but their standards are different than ours.”

October 30, 2020

“[T]here is a need for early education to enforce correct PPE use to alleviate personal risk concerns. This includes re-education of the donning and doffing of PPE to confirm staff are effectively protecting themselves. Data suggests substantial self-contamination risk occurs when doffing PPE….”

October 28, 2020

Sharon Ward-Fore, MS, MT(ASCP), CIC: “I’m hoping that healthcare facilities will find the value in their infection preventionists and understand how important a role they play as far as training on PPE and disinfectants, and in hand hygiene, being kind of a boots on the ground people on the floor to see things firsthand.”

October 22, 2020

When healthcare workers using the red box stepped into the patients’ rooms, there was “significantly increased non-compliance” with PPE and hand hygiene protocols compared to those healthcare workers who went into rooms without red boxes.

October 09, 2020

Perhaps now is the time that innovation begins to rely more heavily on infection preventionists and our valuable insight into the world of healthcare PPE. The changes we help guide now, can help make healthcare safer and infection prevention easier.

October 08, 2020

When COVID-19 struck, the proper use of PPE and greater attention to hand hygiene and cleaning surfaces became the norm. When that happened, rates of Clostridium difficile decreased significantly.