It's that time of year when we all put on our prognosticator's hats and try to predict what the next year will bring. There are numerous entities that have put forth their predictions for healthcare in 2018, so instead of duplicating their fine work, we will try something new. We have gone through all the predictions we could find for healthcare, and put together a list of those we believe will impact infection prevention and control. We hope you enjoy our list!
2017 proved to be a big year for bacteria in the news, and not just in healthcare! Supported by advances in genomic sequencing and other technologies, research into bacteria has arisen in fields as varied as anthropology, climatology, and even aeronautics. Let's take a look at the biggest stories featuring bacteria from this past year.
The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA), with support from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), just released a new guide for hospitals to use when preparing for and containing outbreaks. This document helps hospital epidemiologists respond to community outbreaks of infectious diseases as a part of their Outbreak Response Training Program. With this document in mind, we thought it was a good time to review the biggest outbreaks of 2017, the kinds of outbreaks this document is intended to help mitigate.