Category: Regular Post

Surgeon infected 5 patients at Cedars-Sinai, hospital reports

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center said Friday that a heart surgeon unwittingly infected five patients during valve replacement surgeries, due to tiny tears in his latex surgical glove, earlier this year. The infections caused four of the patients to need a second operation, officials said. The infections occurred after the tears in the latex surgical gloves routinely worn by the doctor allowed bacteria from a skin inflammation on his hand to pass into the patients’ hearts, according to the hospital. The patients survived the second operations and are still recovering, hospital officials said.

With healthcare acquired infections being very common in the US, many hospitals have started more programs to reduce these infections.

How are things going at your hospital?

North Shore University Hospital is volunteering to take surveillance to another level

As you might be aware, the North Shore Hospital has placed sensors over the doorway to help control hand hygiene. There is a sensor over the doorway that senses that you have enter the doorway. The camera turns on above the sink and hand dispenser “to make sure doctors and nurses are washing their hands. According to Dr. Erfan Hussain “When you speak with any doctor they agree that this is something everyone should absolutely do but because of time, energy, busyness…sometimes gets missed.”

Several years ago I had to take my youngest son to the emergency room because he had severed his Achilles tendon. As we sat in the emergency room for about two hours, I had six clinicians approach us. Only one of the six clinicians washed their hands between the previous patient and my son. To the right of my son was an individual to have severe infection from a spider bite and had pus running down his arm. To the left of my son was a patient who had a pop varicose vein and had blood all over. I was very surprised to see that only one of the clinicians washed their hands spontaneously before coming to my son. I asked each of the remaining five clinicians if they would please wash their hands before they examined my son. Three of them wash their hands cheerfully and then came back and examine my son. The remaining two indicated that they had wash their hands prior to coming over to treat my son. I asked them if they knew would watch their hands again so I could watch them. One did as he grumbled. The remaining one refused to wash their hands and so I asked them to please find a replacement-they were not very happy with my request.

What would you do? Do you think your institution would feel like the North Shore Hospital and request that video cameras be placed to confirm that hands were actually been washed?

What do you think?

New Device Means Fewer Needle Sticks At Local Children’s Hospital

You might cringe at the idea of having your blood drawn or being hooked up to an IV line. Many have had the fear of needles since they were kids, but one revolutionary device being used at McLane Children’s Hospital Scott & White in Temple could be preventing that fear ten fold.

Since September, the hospital has been using a device called Vein Viewer. With infrared light, the Vein Viewer projects vein real-time on the skin.

Have you had an opportunity of using this product? What were your thoughts on it? Do you think this product will help reduce the number of accidental needlesticks? Please leave your comments below.

11th Annual International Sharps Injury Prevention Awareness Month

It occurs in just a fraction of a second — first, you are taking a routine blood sample and then the patient moves and the needle slips, sticking the potentially infected needle deep into the base of your thumb. As a result, you could contract HIV and die! This scene or similar scenes occur to an estimated 2,000,000 healthcare workers worldwide every year! These injuries could be prevented if workers were aware and had access to safer needle and other safety devices. That is one reason that ISIPS, the International Sharps Injury Prevention Society is promoting the 11th Annual International Sharps Injury Prevention Awareness Month in December 2012.

The sharps injury awareness campaign is designed to provide information to healthcare workers, waste management workers, and others who are injured through needlestick and other sharps injuries each year. Hospitals, physician offices and others are invited to participate in providing educational articles, mini-posters with sharps safety information, etc. ISIPS is happy to place links on our website and in the newsletter to promote these activities. ISIPS will be joined by a variety of health organizations, journalists, and others in making the working public aware of the dangers of needlestick and other sharps injuries. The worldwide International Sharps Injury Prevention Awareness Month will start on the International AIDS Day, December 1, 2012. This is appropriate since needlesticks and other sharps injuries can result in the transmission of more than 20 different pathogens that have come from infected patients to workers via needles including HIV that can lead to AIDS.

Needlesticks and other sharps injuries are preventable! More than 80 percent of needlestick injuries can be prevented through the use of safer devices. Far too often, healthcare workers are becoming patients after being injured by contaminated medical sharps. Many other workers are also at risk from sharps injuries including cleaning staff, housekeeping staff, paramedics, law enforcement workers, and firemen.

“Healthcare workers and others invest so much of their time, energy, and talents into taking care of the needs of their patients,” said Ron Stoker, executive director of ISIPS. “We need to provide proper medical devices that protect the healthcare worker as well as providing treatment to patients. We believe that the occupational hazards for healthcare workers have been underestimated on a global basis. Sharps injuries create an enormous health and economic problem even without subsequent infection. There are increasing numbers of incidents where workers are pricked by needles or other sharp instruments that may have been in contact with infected blood or other body fluids. Most of these injuries can be prevented.”

ISIPS is a world leader in providing information about sharps injury prevention products. ISIPS has joined in the fight to reduce the number of accidental sharps injuries that occur globally by promoting the use of safety-engineered products and services. The ISIPS website promotes sharps injury prevention products and services. The ISIPS website www.isips.org gives the opportunity for journalists, healthcare workers, and others to receive a free, weekly email newsletter with information about needlesticks, sharps injuries, HIV and Hepatitis

“It is the mission of ISIPS to reach as many healthcare professionals as possible during the International Sharps Injury Prevention Awareness Month,” said Ron Stoker. “The goal is to increase awareness as well as educate staff to safer practices to prevent injuries, saving lives and heartache in the process. We hope to encourage professionals within all niches of healthcare–from the hospital setting to manufacturing companies and suppliers, as well as various organizations–to jump on the bandwagon and join us in this mission.”

For more information about the International Sharps Injury Prevention Awareness Month contact ISIPS at info@isips.org.

In Favour of Needle-Free Injectables

No one likes needles, so imagine the benefits of needle-free delivery systems, especially for chronic conditions where lifetime therapy is required, for example rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Patients already have enough stress to deal with and can definitely do without the added fear and anxiety associated with needles. Other advantages of course include the lack of contamination risks and needle stick injuries, plus disposals are easier when you don’t need a bin for sharps.

Injection Safety Checklist

During the CDC Grand Rounds yesterday, an Injection Safety Checklist was discussed.

The Injection Safety checklist items are a subset of items that can be found in the CDC Infection Prevention Checklist for Outpatient Settings: Minimum Expectations for Safe Care.

The checklist, which is appropriate for both inpatient and outpatient settings, should be used to systematically assess adherence of healthcare personnel to safe injection practices. (Assessment of adherence should be conducted by direct observation of

healthcare personnel during the performance of their duties.)

A copy of the checklist can be obtained here.

What kind of response have you had in your facility as you make an effort to comply with these safety practices?

Hospital-acquired infections alive and healthy

About 1.7 million health care-acquired infections occur annually in the United States, resulting in nearly 100,000 deaths, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in 2002 with recent confirmation of the numbers. One of every 20 hospitalized patients will contract an infection.

A recent simulation using the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center was conducted to help understand how infections spread from hospital to hospital then to test strategies to reduce infection rates of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA, a bacterial infection that’s resistant to most antibiotics.

The simulation demonstrated that a hospital’s decision to test patients for MRSA upon admission then isolate those who test positive — a process known as “contact isolation” — can help to reduce the prevalence of MRSA not only at that location but in other hospitals.

How well does your hospital do with contact isolation? Are all patients tested for MRSA upon admission and then isolated if they test positive?

“I was infected courtesy of a lapse in concentration…”

I was recently reading an article online and came across this picture….

The author was a physician in the UK that was infected with HIV from a needlestick injury. As I read the article and looked at the graphic above I got angry. This poor doctor felt that this was HIS fault… I don’t think that is true! I believe that many needlestick injuries are caused by the following factors:

the management of the facility refused to supply proper safety productsc
convetntional products are being used instead of safety products
safety product features were not activated

What do you think?

Incidence of needlestick injuries appears to be lower among employees at retail pharmacy chain

Vaccinations for flu, tetanus and other common vaccines are increasingly taking place in non-medical settings such as supermarkets and drug stores. This added responsibility for pharmacists increases the risk of needlestick injuries (NSIs), puncture wounds often suffered while preparing or after use of a needle. NSIs can transmit bloodborne pathogens, including hepatitis C and HIV, from an infected patient to the person administering the vaccine.

A new report published in the November issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, the journal of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, found 33 NSIs occurred at 31 difference pharmacy locations of a nationwide retail pharmacy chain over an 11-year period. Over the same period of time, the chain administered more than 2 million vaccinations. Researchers calculated that the annual incidence of NSIs ranged from 0 to 3.62 per 100,000 vaccinations and 0 to 5.65 NSIs per 1,000 immunizing pharmacists. This incidence rate may represent an underestimation of NSIs since past studies have found that NSIs are often underreported by healthcare workers.

Most often NSIs were reported to have occurred after use and before disposal of the needle (58% of incidents) and during peak influenza vaccination months (79%).

“Pharmacists have become an emerging occupational group at risk of needlestick injuries,” said Marie de Perio, MD, medical officer in the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). “While the incidence of needlestick injuries among employees at this retail pharmacy chain appears to be lower than that found in hospital settings, most of the injuries that did occur were likely preventable by following safe work practices.”

Researchers recommend that the company continue to follow existing CDC guidelines to improve its NSI prevention program and add additional information to track the circumstances of the injury to help determine contributing factors.

Source: Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America

U.S. says death toll rises to 23 in meningitis outbreak

The U.S. death toll from fungal meningitis linked to potentially contaminated steroid injections has risen by two to 23, with North Carolina reporting its first death, health officials said on Saturday.

Tennessee’s death total in the outbreak rose to eight, the highest state total, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on its website.
States reported 13 new cases of fungal meningitis, raising the total to 281. There are also three peripheral infections caused by injections into joints.
The outbreak stems from medications shipped by the New England Compounding Center (NECC) in Massachusetts. The company faces federal and state investigations and lawsuits over the tainted medications.

Indiana and New Hampshire reported two new cases apiece. Virginia, Tennessee and New Jersey each had three new cases, the CDC said.

Health regulators confirmed on Thursday the presence of the deadly Exserohilum fungus in vials of the NECC steroid used for pain injections. They estimate that as many as 14,000 people may have been exposed to the contaminated medication.
NECC and its executives face a civil suit in Massachusetts that seeks to freeze the officers’ personal assets. Florida, which has had three deaths and 17 cases, has barred NECC from doing business in the state.

Courtesy Reuters
What do you think will be the outcome of this problem? Do you think that additional regulations are needed to prevent this type of problem?