Infection Prevention Preparedness: Where We Go From Here
As we, and the healthcare industry, continue to work our way toward a post-pandemic world, the lessons learned from COVID-19 remain stark and the calls to rebuild a resilient patient safety culture are loud and clear. Organizations such as the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, the CDC, and CMS are highlighting challenges, including staffing shortages and burnout, that must be addressed to better prepare for future prevention of healthcare-associated infections.
AAMI Announces Newly Updated Standard on Endoscope Cleaning
The Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) just announced the release of an updated version of ANSI/AAMI ST91:2021 Flexible and semi-rigid endoscope processing in health care facilities. The last version of the standard formulated by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and AAMI was released in 2015.
Antibiotics Market ‘Fragile and Failing,’ Report Says
There is an ongoing struggle between antibiotic resistant infections—superbugs such as Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus—and the makers of antibiotics. The global death toll is alarming, with more than 1.2 million people dying annually, and estimated mortality expected to reach 10 million people annually by 2050.
Opioid Use Disorder Plays Significant Role in Many Sepsis Cases
Sepsis develops in response to infection, and can lead to tissue damage, organ failure, and death. Sepsis is the leading cause of in-hospital death in the United States. More than 1.7 million Americans are diagnosed with sepsis annually.
International Infection Prevention Week Resources From PSQH
As International Infection Prevention Week wraps up, we want to thank infection preventionists for all the hard work they do every day. Thanks to our partners GOJO, the makers of Purell, and RLDatix this week for their support.
PSQH Quick Poll 2021: Taking the Pulse of Infection Prevention Efforts
As part of PSQH’s celebration of International Infection Prevention Week, we decided to reach out to our readers with a few questions to find out the state of infection prevention efforts. The Quick Poll had a total of 244 respondents.
Infection Prevention and Control is a Team Sport
Knowing the staggering impact increased HAIs can have on health systems only further emphasizes how critical it is for Risk Management teams to leverage the expertise and knowledge of Infection Prevention and Control (IPAC) and Antimicrobial Stewardship teams to understand and mitigate HAIs in their care populations.
Plant the Seeds of Change with Just-in-Time Coaching
By Lori Moore, MPH, BSN, RN, CPPS Hand hygiene has been recognized as one of the most important measures to reduce germs in healthcare facilities, and educating healthcare workers to the basic fundamentals has become a cornerstone of hand hygiene programs.1-2 While providing education and conveying the importance and need for hand hygiene is … Continued
Three Tips to Empower Teamwork Focused on Infection Prevention
By Sharon Ward-Fore Surface disinfection is key to containing viral outbreaks. Fundamentally, the concept and importance of surface disinfection hasn’t changed. However, the impact of the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic on today’s world makes it imperative to change how the healthcare community conducts proper surface cleaning and disinfection. It starts with mindset – because healthcare and … Continued
‘Perfect Storm’ Increased Healthcare-Associated Infections During Pandemic
The recent research article, which was published by Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology, examined national- and state-level standardized infection ratios (SIR) for each quarter in 2020 compared to each quarter in 2019. SIRs were determined for each HAI by dividing the number of reported infections by the number of predicted infections, calculated using 2015 national baseline data.