One of the most challenging transitions a patient will face is being discharged from the hospital and going to a skilled nursing facility. One fifth of the patients discharged from acute care hospitals are sent to one of the nations 15,000 skilled nursing facilities. According to a new report, skilled nursing facilities will need to address the “Protecting Access to Medicare Act” that starts to take effect in 2018.
The largest epidemic going on inside hospitals and other health care facilities is controlling the infection MRSA. The staph bug causing these infections resists treatment and because it attacks so many people with weakened immune systems, hospital-acquired MRSA accounts for the vast majority of fatal MRSA infections.
The Ohio department of health was notified on Monday 7/18/16 about the outbreak of Norovirus among staffers at the Republican National Convention. All of those affected are staying at the Kalahari resort in Sandusky, Oh, about 60 miles away from...
A recent outbreak of bacterial meningitis recently occurred at the Life Time Fitness Day Camp in Rochester Hills, MI between July 1 and July 11, 2016 with 219 children ages 5-12 being exposed (Steckroth, 2016). Bacterial meningitis is an...
Searching for the root cause of healthcare associated infections (HAIs) is an ongoing and never ending activity. The truth is that there is very little clinical data existing proving the efficacy of cleaning practices. Among the 80 published studies...
UVC devices have been used for successful disinfection of air and surfaces in multiple industries, more specifically the healthcare industry. However, with the use of these devices it has been often noticed that there is a residual odor after...
In the United States, hospitals are in the business of providing healthcare to over 35 million inpatients and performing over 51 million procedures annually. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 5-10% of patients get a...
"[Infection} can start in the hospital. It can start in the nursing home. It can start at home." The annual reported number of healthcare associated infections (HCAIs) in hospitals are documented primarily from acute and...
72 million Americans live in rural areas, and yet there are only 2,000 rural community hospitals in the United States. These facilities face the challenges of remote location, small size, limited staffing, and limited financial resources. Rural hospitals are vital to American health care and should be a significant source of concern to enforce patient safety.
“In the 1970s and 1980s the transmission of pathogens from healthcare surfaces to susceptible patients was thought to be insignificant” (CDC). However more recent studies show surfaces in patient’s rooms play a pivotal role in the...
