Editor's Note The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) on April 12 announced that it is taking steps to implement additional regulatory actions, including consulting with federal health experts, on how to reduce the risks of contamination and infections linked to duodenoscopes. The agency is also collaborating with manufacturers of disposable…

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Editor's Note Patients admitted to the hospital for procedures that would not be expected to require admission (ie, low-value procedures) are being harmed, consuming additional hospital resources, and delaying care for patients for whom the services would be appropriate, this Australian study finds. In this analysis of 9,330 episodes of…

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Editor's Note The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on March 19 released its current progress report on healthcare-associated infections, which includes state and national level statistics for 2017. Among the findings for acute care hospitals: Clostridium difficile infections declined by 13%. Central line-associated bloodstream infections fell by 9%. Methicillin-resistant…

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Editor's Note Educating anesthesia providers on the World Health Organization’s five indications for hand hygiene, increasing access to hand hygiene products in the OR, and monitoring  hand hygiene among anesthesia providers can improve hand hygiene compliance, this study finds. Hand hygiene was observed in three phases: Preimplementation, postimplementation, and 60…

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Editor's Note The risk of hand contamination was higher when healthcare workers (HCWs) removed their gloves before their gowns during personal protective equipment (PPE) doffing, and HCWs who made multiple PPE doffing errors were more likely to have contaminated clothes after patient interactions, this study finds. In this analysis of…

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Contaminated surgical instruments made ECRI Institute’s 2019 annual top 10 list of health technology hazards, coming in at number five: “Mishandling flexible endoscopes after disinfection can lead to patient infections.” Number two on the list in 2018 was “Endoscope reprocessing failures continue to expose patients to infection risk.” It’s not…

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Surgical site infections are multifactorial, and perioperative leaders often struggle with how to reduce or eliminate them. In 2013, after an unexplained increase in surgical site infections (SSIs) among patients undergoing total hip arthroplasty at our facility, we began to investigate the cause. A fairly robust ERAS (enhanced recovery after…

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Editor's Note The Food & Drug Administration on March 12 announced that a federal judge entered a consent decree against Guardian Pharmacy Services (Dallas, Texas) to stop the company from producing compounded drug products intended to be sterile until the company complies with the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic (FD&C)…

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Editor's Note Provider attire is a potential source of pathogenic bacterial transmission in healthcare settings, this review study finds. A total of 22 articles were included in this analysis, which found that provider attire was commonly colonized by multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs), with white coats laundered less frequently than scrubs. The…

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Editor's Note Terminal sterilization of duodenoscopes can be achieved with a hydrogen peroxide-ozone sterilizer, this study finds. A sterility assurance level of 10-6 was achieved under laboratory worst-case conditions and under clinical conditions using a hydrogen peroxide-ozone sterilizer with regulatory clearance for terminal sterilization of duodenoscopes (STERIZONE VP4, TSO3 Inc,…

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