QUAT Cleaners: A Critical Analysis of their Use

by Erica Mitchell | February 16 2024

Achieving and maintaining sanitized surfaces in hospitals requires an arsenal cleaning and disinfecting products, with quaternary ammonium compounds (QACs or QUATs) being a popular choice. However, as with all cleaners and disinfectants, there are both benefits and risks to their use. In today's post, we'll explore the use of quaternary ammonium compounds and some growing concerns about their impact.

Read More

MRSA: An Ancient Bacteria Adapts to Modern Medicine

by Erica Mitchell | October 4 2023

Read More

The CDC's International Infection Control Program: Partners in Prevention

by Erica Mitchell | August 21 2023

Alongside its work in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) maintains an ongoing international presence, providing support and expertise across a variety of healthcare activities. By working with partners in typically low- and middle-income countries, the International Infection Control Program (IICP) focuses efforts on reducing healthcare-associated infections, antimicrobial resistance, and infectious disease outbreaks. In today's post, we will learn about this global program that helps keep all global citizens safe.

Read More

Plasmids Take A Hike

by Erica Mitchell | August 16 2023

Imagine a group of hikers setting out on a 100-mile trek through a remote forest, each taking their own path and traveling alone. Each carries a backpack with supplies necessary for survival such as water, food, tent, and first aid kit. However, a few of them also carry a survival handbook with instructions on how to survive in the wild during life-threatening situations. Unfortunately, this book is extremely heavy, adding 50 lbs the backpack. Who will arrive at the destination?

Read More

Bacterial Armor: The Germs that Become Tanks and How to Eradicate Them

by Erica Mitchell | July 10 2023

Eradicating pathogens from environmental surfaces in hospitals is a daily fight. Keeping bacteria from reproducing on surfaces, finding reservoirs in hard-to-clean areas, and forming biofilms requires daily disinfection, and ideally, some form of continuous mitigation. In today's post, we will look at the threats posed by bacteria that are even more adept at surviving on surfaces: Spore-forming bacteria, and how hospitals are trying to keep these persistent pathogens from threatening their patients.

Read More

What is the ARLAB Network?

by Erica Mitchell | May 10 2023

As a response to the growing global and national threat of antibiotic resistance, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) established a network of labs whose sole mission is to help detect, prevent, contain and respond to outbreaks of antibiotic resistant pathogens. Today's post will explore this mission and how it is implemented.

Read More

A Wave of Candida auris infections: Crashing in Hospitals Nationwide

by Erica Mitchell | April 3 2023

We've covered Candida auris in this blog before. Not only has it been one of the pathogens of concern cited by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, this fungus also infected record numbers of inpatients during the COVID-19 pandemic. This disease-causing pathogen has hit headlines once again, this time brining attention to troubling increases in rates and resistance. What can hospitals - and patients - do to avoid this dangerous hospital-associated infection?

Read More

Increase in Resistant Shigella Infections: 5 Things to Know about Shigella XDR

by Erica Mitchell | March 6 2023

A recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Health Advisory addresses an increase in "extensively-drug-resistant" (XDR) Shigella, the strain that caused 5% of cases of shigellosis in 2022, up from 0% in 2015. Antibiotic resistance has been a top priority for years with national and world health organizations, so what sets this particular strain apart? In today's post, we will cover the 5 things you need to know about this strain of Shigella.

Read More

Thankful for Antibiotics

by Erica Mitchell | November 23 2022

On a fall day in 1928, a window was left open in a London laboratory, letting in a cool breeze. Carried on that breeze were microscopic spores of mold, tiny particles that fell gently onto a work surface covered with open Petri dishes culturing Staphylococcus bacteria. One spore landed on the rich culture medium of a dish and began to grow, contaminating the experiment in progress. This contamination, to the surprise of the scientist when he returned to check on his experiment, was peculiar. The mold had not simply grown, it had also destroyed all the bacteria around it, leaving a clear boundary all around its perimeter. The scientist was Alexander Flemming, and his determination to find out what was going on in this peculiar, unexpected, serendipitous mistake would lead to the world-changing discovery of antibiotics. 

Read More

What Are ESKAPE Pathogens?

by Erica Mitchell | October 17 2022

In 2008, the medical field presented data to the federal government in support of funding to study antimicrobial resistance in hospital-associated pathogens. A leading figure in the effort, Dr. Louis B. Rice, had spent his career studying the mechanisms of antibiotic resistance and knew first-hand the threat presented by resistant pathogens as hospital-acquired infections. In his statement of support to continued funding of research, Dr. Rice coined a term that has become a useful acronym for anyone working in the field of infection prevention and control: ESKAPE pathogens. In today's post, we will discover these pathogens and the status of our fight against them since Dr. Rice first devised the term.

Read More
Top_100_Healthcare_Blog

Subscribe to the Blog!

Recent Blog Posts

Archives

see all

Recent News

Recent Events

download_presskit

Copyright Notice

© EOS Surfaces and EOScu Blog, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to EOS Surfaces and EOScu Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.