Guest Author: Steven Q. Simpson, MD University of Kansas and Sepsis Alliance I am one of the newest members of the board of directors of Sepsis Alliance. If you haven’t heard of Sepsis Alliance, it is a non-profit organization whose aim is to heighten awareness of severe sepsis as an emergency among the general public […]
Guest Author: Orlaith Staunton Co-Founder of The Rory Staunton Foundation Our son Rory Staunton, 12 years old, died on Sunday, April 01, 2012 from undiagnosed sepsis. A few days earlier Rory fell playing basketball and scraped his arm. Rory began to feel ill just past midnight a day and a half after the fall. His […]
Guest Author: Wendy Kaler, MPH, CIC Dignity Health Clinical Lead for CAUTI Prevention At Dignity Health, our goal is to reduce the rate of hospital-acquired infections (HAI) by 40 percent and readmissions by 20 percent before 2015, and we are well on our way. We have introduced specific evidence-based practices and bedside intervention activities to […]
Guest Author – John O’Keefe, BDentSc, MDentSc, MBA Board Chairman, Organization for Safety, Asepsis and Prevention (OSAP) Because safe injection and sharps management practices are central to dentistry, the One & Only Campaign resonates strongly in the dental care sector. That is why the Organization for Safety Asepsis & Prevention (OSAP), the dental sector’s premier […]
Guest Author: Kim James, MS, FNP-BC Director, Occupational Health, Brookdale University Medical Center When teaching about Safe Injection/Safe Needle Practices, I always like to determine the students’ knowledge base regarding these principles. I’m often surprised to find that what I take for granted as a “given” is anything but! This is one reason why, at […]
Guest Author: Kyle B. Enfield, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Assistant Hospital Epidemiologist, Medical Director, Medical Intensive Care Unit, University of Virginia Infections due to carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) are on the rise…
Guest Author: Kimberly New, JD BSN RN, President, Tennessee Chapter of the National Association of Drug Diversion Investigators In my last blog, I talked about the impact of drug diversion on hospitals and healthcare facilities. Today, I will be discus…
Guest Author: Kimberly New, JD BSN RN President, Tennessee Chapter of the National Association of Drug Diversion Investigators In my last blog, I talked about how drug diversion, or theft of medication, poses a continuous threat to patient safety. In t…
Guest Author: Timothy Wiemken, PhD, MPH, CIC Assistant Professor of Medicine Division of Infectious Diseases University of Louisville School of Medicine The 41st Annual Conference of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiolo…
Guest Author: Kimberly New, JD BSN RN President, Tennessee Chapter of the National Association of Drug Diversion Investigators You may have seen some recent media reports about drug diversion. Today, I want to break down the issue of drug diversion and…
Author: Joseph Perz, DrPH, MA Quality Standards and Safety Team Leader for the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention When prescription medicines are stolen or used illegally, it is called drug diversion. P…
Author: Pamela Bryant, MS Health Communications Specialist, CDC To do: Biopsy MRI Port-a-Cath Chemotherapy Genetic Testing Lumpectomy Radiation The above list is not exactly the type of to-do list I ever thought I’d be faced with. As you can imagine,…
Author: Michele E. Gaguski MSN RN AOCN CHPN APN-C As an oncology nurse, I often see anxiety and fear in the eyes of my patients as I teach them what to expect from their first round of chemotherapy. Most of the time, patients’ first questions are…
Author: Ebbing Lautenbach MD, MPH, MSCE Over the last decade, the incidence of multidrug resistance in gram-negative pathogens has steadily increased, yet there has not been any increase in antimicrobial development to address these organisms. The po…
Despite Progress, three-quarters of a million infections threaten hospital patients each year National and state data detail threat of healthcare-associated infections and opportunities for further improvements. CDC released two reports today – one, …