Health care workers may be suffering in silence from work-related dermatitis, much of it linked to frequent hand washing. Cases of work-related dermatitis are about 100 times greater than the rate reflected in federal data, and health care workers are…
Will Sawyer, MD, is something of a voice in the wilderness when it comes to spreading the gospel of hand hygiene, but he assures me with an easy laugh that he won’t let the issue drive him crazy like Ignaz Semmelweis…
A hospital outbreak of Klebsiella oxytoca was linked to contaminated sinks which were used for both hand hygiene and disposal of patient body fluids, investigators reported. K. oxytoca is primarily a health care–associated pathogen acquired from environmental sources. During…
Health care workers who want to “do the right thing” must be supported by a culture change that recognizes infection prevention as a system problem that warrants a system solution, said Elaine Larson, PhD, professor of pharmaceutical and therapeutic Research…
It is encouraging to see the spontaneous, creative combustion that seems to be occurring everywhere in the area of hand hygiene improvement. The bane of infection prevention is no longer accepted with unwashed hands thrown in the air. Rather,…
I am not aware of any study that shows that Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is more difficult than susceptible staph strains to deactivate and remove by hand washing. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendation that health care workers…
The touch of death in any given moment in a hospital may come from a ministering angel, literal “care” givers with a special place for patients in their hearts and transient colonies of some pan-resistant pathogen on their hands. “Wash ‘em,”…
It seems only appropriate to begin HICprevent – Hospital Infection Control & Prevention’s new blog site – with a message near and dear to our hearts and hands. This Aug. 13th will mark 146 years since Ignaz Semmelweis – the…