Hoping to improve infection control in hospitals, the nation's top infection prevention and infectious disease societies joined recently with the American Hospital Association and the Joint Commission, which accredits hospitals, to issue implementation strategies for preventing six serious healthcare associated infections conditions.

The six conditions covered in the guidelines, are central-line-associated bloodstream infections, ventilator-associated pneumonia, catheter-associated urinary tract infections, surgical site infections, Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, and Clostridium difficile, an intestinal bacterium.

The recommended practices do not vary significantly from the encyclopedic guidelines issued and revised over the last two decades by the government advisory panel that advises health and human services on infection related matters; however, the authors say they have been written more clearly and concisely, are practical and contain with advice not only on what hospitals should do to prevent infections, but also on what they should not do, and include secondary approaches to try if first-line measures do not lower infection rates.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which also endorses the new implementation strategies estimates that there are 1.7 million infection cases a year in hospitals, and that 99,000 patients die after contracting them (although the infection alone may not be the cause). It projects the cost of treating hospital infections at $20 billion a year.

To read the full article, please visit:
The New York Times

The United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently released a study of reporting programs and individual hospital initiatives that are being used across the country to curb health-care-associated infections (HAI). HAIs are infections that patients acquire while receiving treatment for other conditions. Normally treated with antimicrobial drugs, HAIs are a growing concern as exposure to multidrug-resistant organisms (MDRO) becomes more common. Infections caused by MDROs, such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), lead to longer hospital stays, higher treatment costs, and higher mortality.

In response to demands for more public information on HAIs, many states have begun to establish HAI public reporting systems. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) developed a system--the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN)--to collect HAI data from hospitals and some states have chosen to use it for their programs. In addition, some hospitals have adopted initiatives to reduce MRSA by routinely testing some or all patients and isolating those who test positive for MRSA from contact with other patients.

The GAO was asked to examine (1) the design and implementation of state HAI public reporting systems, (2) the initiatives hospitals have undertaken to reduce MRSA infections, and (3) the experience of certain early-adopting hospitals in overcoming challenges to implement such initiatives. The GAO interviewed state officials, reviewed documents, and surveyed or conducted site visits at hospitals with MRSA-reduction initiatives.

To read the full report, please visit:
The U.S.GAO website

Federal regulators announced last week that they don't plan to try to rid drinking water supplies of a toxic rocket fuel ingredient, perchlorate, that's been found in 35 states. Particularly widespread in California and Texas, perchlorate has been found to interfere with thyroid function and pose developmental health risks, particularly for babies and fetuses.

For decades, the Defense Department used perchlorate in testing missiles and rockets. Congressional investigators found last year that most perchlorate contamination is the result of defense and aerospace activities. The Pentagon could face liability if EPA set a national drinking water standard that forced water agencies around the country to undertake costly clean-up efforts.

In the meantime, states have already moved ahead with their own drinking water standards, with California setting a limit of six parts per billion and Massachusetts setting it at twp parts per billion.

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The Associated Press

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