Hungarian obstetrician Ingvar Semmelweis recognized the link between hand washing and childbirth fever in the mid-1800s. During his lifetime, this theory was often ignored or mocked, but ultimately hand washing was scientifically proven to prevent infections. Almost two centuries later, hand washing still reigns as the queen of infection prevention,…

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Janet Haas, PhD, RN, CIC, FSHEA, FAPIC, hopes technology will one day achieve what no other strategy has thus far: Increase the rate of hand hygiene compliance. Haas, president of the Association of Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, says it will need to be a small device that does…

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Editor's Note This study found that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) hospital-acquired conditions policy on central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI) and catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI) had minimal financial effects on hospitals because billing codes for CLABSI and CAUTI were rarely used and there was a significant…

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Editor's Note The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) on July 6 announced that individual blood donations no longer need to be screened for Zika virus, “unless there is an increased risk of local mosquito-borne transmission of Zika virus in a specific geographic area that would trigger individual donation testing in…

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Editor's Note Medicare’s Hospital Acquired Condition Reduction Program’s (HACRP) measure for surgical site infections (SSIs) after hysterectomy and colectomy unfairly places hospitals that are not statistical outliers at risk for financial penalties, this study from the University of Michigan finds. SSIs occurred in 1.1% of hysterectomies and 4.8% of colectomies…

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Editor's Note In a study on the effectiveness of reprocessing flexible bronchoscopes presented June 14 by Ofstead and Associates at the Association for Professionals in Infection Control’s annual conference in Minneapolis, the majority of bronchoscopes were found to be contaminated and damaged even when cleaned and high-level disinfected according to…

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What does it take to get endoscopes dry? That is the question that prompted a new study on endoscope drying effectiveness by Ofstead & Associates (St Paul, Minnesota). “We asked that question after a study we did 2 years ago found that increasing the automated endoscope reprocessor [AER] drying cycle…

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Editor's Note Small, rural critical access hospitals have significant gaps in their infection prevention practices, finds this new study presented June 13 at the Annual Conference of the Association of Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology in Minneapolis. In 36 Nebraska hospitals analyzed, researchers found important gaps in all domains,…

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Editor's Note After a routine survey, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) declared “Immediate Jeopardy” at UC San Diego’s Hillcrest campus because of cleaning issues with its surgical equipment, the June 8 10News reports. A CDPH report says that deficiencies found included: trays of surgical equipment with brown stains…

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Editor's Note The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on June 11 issued a Health Advisory on investigations of hepatitis A outbreaks in multiple states in people reporting drug use and/or homelessness and their contacts. From January 2017 to April 2018, the CDC has received more than 2,500 reports…

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