Every field has its own jargon, vocabulary, and acronyms. Infection control and prevention is no different! In today's post, we'll look at some of the lesser-known acronyms that every infection prevention professional should know. For those topics we have covered elsewhere in the blog, you will find a link to that page. So grab your spoons and get ready for some alphabet soup!
Over the past decade, the general public has come to hear more terminology about vaccines than ever before. Thanks in part to the growth of anti-vaccination groups and resulting media coverage, your average person has been exposed to terms such as "live attenuated ," "quadrivalent" and "recombinant." While the medical field is unanimous in its support for vaccines for those individuals healthy enough to have them, the confusion surrounding these terms can still remain an obstacle for some. Today's post aims at demystifying these terms in the hopes that knowledge will lead to an informed decision (and more flu shots).
Infection prevention and control is a challenging field. There is the long training and certification process. There are the long hours of on-the-job training and specialization. There are the mountains and mountains of paperwork alongside the demanding clinical work. Some might even say it’s a thankless job, with tons of pressure to improve, alongside an ever-changing landscape of pathogens and patient populations. And yet there continues to be a group of passionate individuals who choose to make a difference by becoming infection preventionists. In honor of Thanksgiving, today we take a moment to say thank you to all those students of infection control, the future professionals in IC/IP.
In our series on Clostridium difficile, we explored the bacteria that causes this lethal hospital-acquired infection, the resulting infectious disease, and the outlook for treatment and prevention. We are now offering this one-page infographic that presents the highlights of this series on one shareable page. The cycle of infection as well as the lifecycle of the microorganisms are presented in relation to each other, with the added element of where either of those cycles can be broken, preventing an outbreak.
A new market for healthcare is experiencing a bit of a boom: Free-standing emergency rooms (FSERs). These facilities provide 24-hour-a-day emergency care, including imaging, trauma, and other services typically associated with a hospital's emergency department. While they attempt to provide a helpful service for the communities they serve, FSERs face a number of challenges, including infection control and prevention. In today's post, we'll explore these facilities and what they offer the healthcare marketplace.
There are 6 reasons why Clostridium difficile is such a menace. Each one of these aspects makes C. diff infections, or CDIs, a force to be reckoned with. All six make it one of the greatest threats in hospital infection control.
The National Institutes of Health is the largest public funder of biomedical research around the globe. This support has led to life-saving treatments as well as an ever-growing body of research that paves the way to future breakthroughs. NIH funding comes in the form of grants, of which there are dozens of types. In today's post, we'll look at just one type of grant and why it is so important to research in infection control and prevention.
You are a patient in the hospital, recovering from a surgical procedure. You are put on antibiotics to prevent infection, and everything seems fine. That is, until you begin to get sick. Not from your surgery, but from abdominal pain, fever, cramping, and terrible diarrhea. Your doctor informs you that you have become infected with Clostridium difficile. Now you are not only trying to recover from your surgery, you are also trying to fight off the leading cause of hospital-acquired infection death. How did this happen? What is C. diff doing to your body? Today we’ll explore the disease that has hospitals and long-term care facilities desperate to find solutions: Clostridium difficile colitis.
Today is Veteran’s Day, a day to celebrate the dedication and sacrifice of those Americans who served our country as a member of our armed services. One of the best ways to honor our veterans is by ensuring that their return to civilian life is healthy and successful. A significant part of that healthy transition is the benefits available through the Veterans Health Administration, or VA, both through compensation and health care services. Today we will explore the history and future of this health services provider, and well as some of the challenges and achievements it has faced over time.
C. diff, or Clostridium difficile, is a Gram-positive, rod-shaped, anaerobic, endosporic, toxigenic, opportunistic, bacillus. Its scientific description makes it sound like a pretty standard bacteria. But this bacteria "causes almost half a million illnesses in the United States each year" according to the CDC. November is C. diff Awareness Month so stick with us all month to learn more about this microorganism and the unique attributes that make it so lethal. Today’s post will explore the basic definition of Clostridium difficile. First, let’s unpack that long list of terms mentioned above.
