Constant readers, the magazine Consumer Reports has done an extended, state-by-state analysis of which hospitals do well, or very badly, in preventing one important category of infections: central line-associated bloodstream infections, or CLABSIs (pronounced klab-sees). It’s a comprehensive package in easily understandable language. It’s based on the state reporting data that some activists have managed [...]
I have a story tonight at CIDRAP about a paper published this evening in the journal Science. To respect fair use and make sure my colleagues get clicks, I just quote the story here — but then I want to talk about why I think it’s such an important study.
A multi-national team of researchers [...]
From a multi-state, public-private research team — Duke University, Wayne State University, and the Durham, NC VA — comes a precise and alarming calculation of MRSA’s costs in hospitals: For one post-surgery infection, $61,681.
The group compared the course, costs and final outcome of three matched groups of patients from one tertiary-care center and six community [...]
Bad news from the Association of Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC): In a survey of almost 2,000 of their 12,000 members, 41% say that their hospitals’ infection-prevention budgets have been cut due to the down economy.
According to the survey, conducted March 2009 and released Tuesday morning:
Three-quarters of those whose budgets were cut experienced [...]
Constant readers, the H1N1 (Virus Formerly Known as Swine) Flu story remains a bit intense. I’ve missed a few MRSA stories over the past few days, so here is a round-up.
First, though, if you’re curious about what the swine flu reaction says about our ability to handle a pandemic, you might take a look at [...]
Via the Boston Globe and the blog of the hospital’s CEO comes work of an ongoing outbreak of community-associated MRSA in the newborn nursery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston:
…between last November and March, BIDMC experienced several occurrences or “clusters” of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, infections that have affected some of our [...]
As promised, a round-up of some of the research presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA), held last weekend in San Diego. (Disclosure: I was on the faculty for the meeting; in exchange for co-hosting a session, SHEA will be reimbursing me for airfare and hotel. I wasn’t [...]
Here’s some of the news that I mentioned Friday – no, I’m not hoarding, I’m just desperately behind on some writing (and falling further down the curve all the time, but thanks for the concern).
A team from Ondokuz Mayis University in Turkey, publishing in the open-access journal Annals of Clinical Microbiology and Antimicrobials, looked beyond [...]
Constant readers, you will no doubt have seen the overnight news about a paper by CDC authors in the Journal of the American Medical Association, reporting a significant decline in catheter-associated bloodstream infections (known by the uncatchy acronym CLABSIs, and yes, people pronounce it “klab-seez”) in intensive care units.
Our results show that the 6 most [...]
I’ve been moving my RSS feeds over to a new reader and so am behind in reading things. That’s my lame excuse for not noticing an excellent story in the Washington Post Tuesday, a first-person account tracing the “conversion” of one skeptical physician to the cause of reducing hospital infections.
The story was highlighted at the [...]
Recommending: Consumer Reports on hospital infections
0 CommentsMRSA in the journal Science – spread, outbreaks and an argument for active surveillance
0 CommentsOne surgical infection with MRSA: $61,000
0 CommentsInfections rise, but hospital budgets – and infection control – shrink
0 CommentsWhile taking a flu break, a MRSA round-up
0 CommentsMRSA in a hospital nursery
0 CommentsMRSA research at Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America meeting
0 CommentsResistant bacteria on health care workers’ phones
1 CommentMRSA reductions in ICUs – good news, but qualified
0 CommentsAn inside look at combating HAIs
0 Comments© 2013 Maryn McKenna. All Rights Reserved.
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