December 23rd 2024
Discover how reducing hand hygiene observations from 200 to 50 per unit monthly can optimize infection preventionists' time, enhance safety culture, and improve patient outcomes.
Q&A: Be Creative with COVID Vaccination Efforts
January 28th 2021Mary Jean Ricci MSN, RNBC: “[Infection preventionists] really need to think about how we’re getting people from the assessment area to the vaccination area to the evaluation area in a unidirectional flow so that we don’t have the spread of the virus at the time of inoculation.”
Infection Preventionists Must Teach Value of COVID Vaccines
January 27th 2021Sharon Ward-Fore, MS, MT(ASCP), CIC: “Infection preventionists need to remind people to be vigilant both in health care and outside of health care. Because we’re not done with this yet. We have a long way to go before we’re fully protected.”
Pssst! Vaccines Can’t Guarantee COVID Immunity
January 15th 2021Linda Spaulding RN, BC, CIC, CHEC, CHOP: “There’s not enough literature out there yet to say that once you get the vaccine, you won’t get COVID again, and the literature that is out there says that once you get the vaccine, even if you don’t get COVID again, you can still be an asymptomatic carrier.”
Endoscope Cleaning: What Infection Preventionists Should Know
January 7th 2021Linda Spaulding RN, BC, CIC, CHEC, CHOP: “Infection preventionists need to learn how to clean an endoscope, or at least observe the cleaning…. Infection preventionists need to make rounds, they need to talk to the person processing.”
Better Protection from COVID Needed for Providers
December 30th 2020Kristy Warren: “We need to do everything we can to help protect our providers when performing these aerosol generating procedures. And subsequently those providers that enter the room or exit the room after these procedures have occurred.”
Q&A: ‘It’s Far Worse Than COVID’
December 28th 2020Ravi Starzl, PhD: “If you’re constantly focused on trying to escalate the war of destruction, I think that the bacteria will always win that war. They just have too many countermeasures available to them and our rate of developing new antibiotics is far slower than their rate of developing countermeasures.”
Q&A: ‘Are You Going to Get the Vaccine?’
December 17th 2020Bruce Y. Lee, MD, MBA: “We have to remember that infection control and prevention is not just dealing with the pathogen itself but dealing with the consequences and the downstream effects of what happens when you are dealing with the pathogen.”
Bracing for ‘Logistical Nightmare’ of COVID Vaccine Distribution
December 9th 2020Sharon Ward-Fore, MS, MT(ASCP), CIC: “If it were my institution, I would make sure that infection preventionists are educated on everything they need to know about the COVID vaccine, as well as the flu vaccine side effects.”
Infection Preventionist: ‘We On the Frontlines Have to be Strong’
December 3rd 2020Rebecca Leach: “I think the biggest thing is just having support, whoever it is. If it’s a fellow infection preventionist…. It really is that emotional support of being able to talk to each other about your experiences and really process your feelings.”
Healthcare Workers Hit by COVID Need Workers Comp
November 17th 2020Kevin Kavanagh, MD: “We can’t just bury our heads in the sand and bleed through healthcare staff and bleed through PPE, thinking that this is not going to be something that’s going to cause severe problems in these individuals, or that it’s going to magically disappear next week."
Q&A: Stethoscopes Carry Loads of COVID, Other Pathogens
November 17th 2020W. Frank Peacock, MD, FACEP, FACC, FESC: “When I intubate somebody, I need to know where the tube is, and I need to know now—like within 10 seconds. You can’t tell with anything else. Nothing is as fast as the stethoscope. I can get an X-ray, but I’ve got to wait for the X-ray while you hold your breath.”
Q&A: Infection Preventionists Keep Hospitals on Track
November 17th 2020Caitlin Stowe, CIC, MPH, CPHQ, VA-VC: “The cool thing about being an infection preventionists is that I call myself the jack of all trades, but the master of really none. Because you really have to know a little bit about everything.”
Q&A: Infection Preventionists, OR Nurses Team Up
November 13th 2020Linda K. Groah, MSN, RN, CNOR, NEA-BC, FAAN: “Historically, we have not always had the best relationship. There’s been some competition between infection preventionists and OR managers or directors. The operating room has been that secret area behind the double doors.”
Q&A: Dealing with COVID the Chameleon
November 10th 2020Fibi Attia, MD, MPH, CIC: “There is a daily meeting where we talk about the possibility of getting those COVID vaccines and where are we going to store them. How are we going to distribute them? How many doses do we need? Those kinds of things are being discussed on a daily basis.”
Q&A: Healthcare Workers Coming Down With COVID
November 4th 2020Linda Spaulding: “Infection preventionists, put your tennis shoes on because over the next two months, we’re predicting to see a huge increase.... We have all the holidays coming up. You’re going to have cases from those. Hospitals have to be prepared.”
Q&A: Stamp Personal Protective Equipment with ‘Made in America’
November 3rd 2020Ashish Diwanji: “The personal protective equipment made and sold in the US has to abide by the standards set up by NIOSH …. The PPE made and sold from China do adhere to the Chinese standards, but their standards are different than ours.”
COVID Vaccine: What Infection Preventionists Need to Know
October 30th 2020Kevin Kavanagh, MD: “Infection preventionists will need to make sure that they still have access to adequate PPE, even if the vaccine comes out [and they] really need to look at the experimental group that was used for the EUA.”
Q&A: CDC Wants to Help Infection Preventionists
October 29th 2020Michael Bell, MD: “The challenge that infection control professionals face has grown tremendously. We’re asking these individuals to not only be experts, but also to take responsibility for such a wide range of activities ... and finding ways to help them accomplish what they’re doing across the whole population of healthcare personnel is the rationale behind Project Firstline.”