|Articles|July 15, 2022

Weekly Rounds: Protecting IPs’ Wellbeing, CDC’s Special Report, and More

Take 5 minutes to catch up on Infection Control Today’s highlights for the week ending July 15.

Here are 5 highlights from ICT®’s wide-ranging coverage of the infection prevention and control world. Everything from interviews with known opinion leaders, to the news that infection preventionists and other health care professionals can use on their jobs.

How to Protect Infection Preventionists’ Mental and Physical Wellbeing From COVID-19 Burnout

Bernadette Mazurek Melnyk, PhD, and her colleagues examined how COVID-19 affected infection preventionists’ mental and physical health, and in an exclusive interview, she discusses how facilities and IPs themselves can mitigate burnout.

CDC's Antimicrobial Resistance Special Report Details Dramatic Increases

The report addresses how the US’s decisions on the pandemic generally increased antimicrobial resistance, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendations for the future.

Do Ultrasound Probes Require High-Level Disinfection?

While a few ultrasound procedures suggest increased instances of patient infections due to low-level disinfection techniques, statistically, results from peer-reviewed studies do not confirm this idea.

Terminal Cleaning, Including UV Sterilization, Effectiveness in Mitigating Pathogen Transmission

For terminal cleans, investigators studied the effect of UV-C disinfection added to chlorine-based disinfectants on the likelihood of MDRO transmission from the source occupant to subsequently exposed occupants.

Inconsistent Ultrasound Transducer Disinfection Procedure Guidelines Confuse Processors

Improper standards complicate cleaning and disinfecting and can represent a wasteful use of resources, specifically when facilities also may lack access to high-level technology.


Related to this article

A group of students raising their hands in class during a lecture  (Adobe Stock 292282454 by Mediteraneo
How do you celebrate an infection that never happened? That's one of the unusual challenges infection preventionists share with teachers. Both can spend their careers changing outcomes they may never see. Both educate people who don't always want to listen. Both are second-guessed. Both face burnout. And both must somehow keep remembering why they started.
A brightly lit Hospital operating room, a surgical team wearing gowns and masks.  (Adobe Stock 1790696595 by Damian)
Turnover pressure can leave critical OR cleaning steps unfinished. Karen deKay, MSN, RN, EBP-C, CNOR, CIC, FAPIC, examines common gaps in environmental hygiene and how shared responsibilities, attention to disinfectant contact time, and ongoing education can help teams strengthen practices between cases.