By: Kelly Cawcutt, MD, MS, FACP, FIDSA; Sponsored by Clorox Healthcare Hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) are infections acquired during medical care and are often directly related to the use of medical devices or procedures, along with lapses in critical infection control practices such hand hygiene, and appropriate cleaning and disinfection. Every day in the US, approximately 1 in 31 patients will suffer from a HAI. These… Continue Reading
By: Kelly Cawcutt, MD, MS, FACP, FIDSA; Sponsored by Clorox Healthcare Infectious diseases remain a critical cause of morbidity, mortality and cost in all healthcare facilities including outpatient clinics, long-term care facilities and acute care facilities, such as hospitals. Infections can come from two main places – inside the hospital walls and from outside within a community. A patient can develop a community-acquired infection prior… Continue Reading
This is a continuation of this month’s #PharmToExamTable question about C. difficile treatment: What is the evidence supporting a tapered vancomycin regimen?
-Answered by Andre Wilt, PharmD 2020 Graduate of UNMC College of Pharmacy (Reviewed by Scott Bergman PharmD and Andrew Watkins PharmD)
This month’s #PharmToExamTable question was a review of Clostridioides difficile treatment guidelines:
-Answered by Andre Wilt, PharmD 2020 Graduate of UNMC College of Pharmacy (Reviewed by Scott Bergman PharmD and Andrew Watkins PharmD)
As we have lived through this pandemic as Infectious Diseases physicians and leaders in Infection Control and Employee Health, we also have encountered nearly unprecedented fear within our workplace.
The following is a review by one of our fellows, Dr. Randy McCreery, who at a recent journal club presented a paper by Johnson, et al.: Effectiveness of Oral Vancomycin for Prevention of Healthcare Facility-Onset Clostridioides difficile Infection in Targeted Patients During Systemic Antibiotic Exposure, Clinical Infectious Diseases, 28 September 2019. In addition, Drs. McCreery, Cawcutt, Cortes-Penfield & Van Schooneveld published a letter to the editor… Continue Reading
The AMDA – The Society for Post-Acute and Long Term-Care Medicine convened a UTI consensus statement workgroup in 2017 to outline best practices for the management of UTI in post-acute and long-term care (PALTC) settings. The workgroup consisted of various national and international subject matter experts and was chaired by UNMC faculty Dr. Muhammad Salman Ashraf, who is an Associate Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases…. Continue Reading
Content courtesy of Dr. Angela Hewlett Coronaviruses are common respiratory pathogens, and generally cause mild symptoms of the ‘common cold’. However, other coronavirus strains have been known to cause outbreaks that lead to more severe disease like pneumonia, and even death. Examples of these include SARS and MERS, which are both coronaviruses with mortality rates of 10% and 34%, respectively. Here is a newly published… Continue Reading
Blood cultures are a key diagnostic test to detect bacteremia and appropriately treat patients with sepsis and are performed approximately 30 million times in the United States yearly. Unfortunately, contamination of blood cultures occurs in the 0.5% to 5% of samples (approximately 25% of positive blood cultures are due to contamination) which leads to inappropriate antibiotic treatment, additional unneeded tests, extended hospital length of stay,… Continue Reading
Content written by Dr. Mark Rupp. Impressive gains in the prevention of central line associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI) have been realized in recent years in US hospitals. However, with efforts to improve efficiency and decrease hospital length of stay, patients are increasingly being discharged to home health care to receive intravenous therapy. The rate of complications associated with vascular catheterization in the home care setting… Continue Reading
