Past studies have linked contact precautions with adverse health events like patients developing delirium, increased risk of falls, or pressure ulcers. Now we have a new study on the effects of contract precautions on patient care that poses something of…
The silos that separate patient safety and worker safety are coming down. Preventing medical errors and protecting health care workers are part of the same continuum, The Joint Commission accrediting body asserts in a new monograph. For employee health professionals,…
In a “call to action,” sharps safety experts are targeting gaps in needlestick prevention and seeking to spur a new commitment to make improvements. “Over the past 25 years, there’s been such tremendous success in reducing health care workers’ risk…
Overriding objections by the nation’s leading occupational health agency, the National Vaccine Advisory Committee recently recommended that hospitals and other health care facilities that cannot achieve a 90% annual flu vaccination rate for their employees should “strongly consider” mandating immunization….
“Big Brother is Watching You,” wrote George Orwell in his classic cautionary novel 1984. The increasingly high-tech solutions to the historic problem of hand hygiene (HH) compliance raise this familiar specter, as health care workers are being tagged, badged, beeped,…
The federal agency most directly charged with protecting health care workers has come out against mandating that they be immunized against seasonal influenza. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) — which likely would be charged with enforcing any such…
A consumer advocacy group is targeting one of the longstanding tools of infection prevention, saying latex gloves should be banned due to the risk of life-threatening allergic reactions in health care workers and patients. In an April 25th petition to…
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,”…
Everyone wants to have high rates of health care worker influenza immunization, but just who gets counted in their numbers? Not everyone. About half of hospitals face major barriers in tracking the immunizations of credentialed or other non-employees, according to…
In the continuing hue and cry over mandatory flu shots for health care workers, questions have arisen about the regulatory position of the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Can hospitals mandate that health care works be immunized without…