The following are 14 infection control findings from the past month, beginning with the most recent.
1. Severe cases of Clostridium difficile increased 47 percent between 2001 and 2010, according to research published in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.
2. Inconsistent methodology and poor quality improvement reporting contribute to slow improvement of surgical site infection rates, according to research published in Journal of the American College of Surgeons.
3. Clinicians treat methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus based on national, rather than local, infection trends, according to research published in Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection Control.
4. The number of MRSA-positive patients admitted is associated with a proportional change in the number of hospital-acquired MRSA infections recorded, according to an article published in Clinical Infectious Diseases.
5. More than 50 percent of patients are unaware of risks associated with central line-associated bloodstream infections, according to research in The American Journal of Infection Control.
6. Surgical site infections may remain completely unreported when surgical patients are admitted to hospitals different from those at which their operations were performed, according to research in Clinical Infectious Diseases.
7. Healthcare-associated infection data reporting suffers from gross inconsistencies, according to an article in The American Journal of Infection Control.
9. Gown and glove use for patient contact in medical and surgical intensive care units is not an effective method for controlling the spread of MRSA or vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus, according to an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
10. Direct and indirect societal costs from healthcare-associated infections in U.S. acute-care hospitals are between $96 billion and $147 billion annually, according to an article published in The Journal of Medical Economics.
11. Admission to the intensive care unit is not a risk factor for MRSA, according to a meta-study published in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology.
12. Visual inspection is at least as effective as commercial, non-biological methods of determining post-discharge environmental clean, according to a study published in Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection Control.
13. Hospital patients with certain infections have lower mortality, readmission rates, length of stay and costs when treated early by an infectious diseases specialist than when treated later, according to a study in Clinical Infectious Diseases.
14. Infected patients as sources for C. diff account for only half of all of C. diff. infections, with the other half of infections originating outside healthcare settings, according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
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