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Building on its major educational campaign Infection Prevention and You focusing on hospital infection prevention, the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) introduced educational materials for long-term care, home care, and ambulatory care to help patients stay safe from infections. Introduced in concert with International Infection Prevention Week (IIPW), Oct. 14-20, 2012, the new Infection Prevention and You campaign materials help guide important conversations patients should hold with their healthcare team to prevent infection. IIPW provides a focal point to empower stakeholders, including patients and their families, in taking an active role to prevent infection. In addition to empowering patients and their families to speak up to prevent infection, it is the first consumer campaign of its kind designed to educate consumers about infection preventionistsdedicated experts who partner with the broader healthcare team and implement evidence-based methods to prevent healthcare-associated infections. Patients often feel intimidated in the healthcare setting and may not know what to say or what do to stay safe, says APIC Communications Committee chair Ann Marie Pettis, RN, BSN, CIC, who assisted in developing the campaign content. Due to the growing need to help patients in non-acute care settings understand the active role they can play to prevent infections, we customized the campaign material for long-term, home, and ambulatory care. We hope that these materials will be used to promote quality and patient safety initiatives. APICs Infection Prevention and You campaign material is available in a variety of formats, including posters, brochures, and fliers. Individual healthcare organizations can also customize the material by adding their logos and the contact information for their infection prevention department. Campaign material is available for free download at: www.apic.org/patientsafety      

Timely screening and diagnosis is critical to the success of new treatments and ultimately to the survival of hepatitis C patients. A new study led by the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI MUHC) is the first to show that hepatitis C rapid and point of care tests with a quick turnaround time are highly accurate and reliable as conventional first-line laboratory tests. This head-to-head analysis, published in the current issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, will lead to changes in screening practices and ultimately impact the control of hepatitis C infection worldwide.

Four experts in anesthesiology, infectious disease and pain medicine discussed the recent U.S. meningitis outbreak in the late-breaking education panel, The Fungal Meningitis Crisis, on Oct. 14. The panel attracted more than 500 attendees as part of the ANESTHESIOLOGY 2012 annual meeting.