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
In addition to being one of our ID physicians, Dr. James Lawler serves as the Director or International Programs and Innovation at the Global Center for Health Security, a center that will focus on training federal personnel to manage highly infectious diseases, and Director of Clinical and Biodefense Research at the National Strategic Research Institute. His interest in global health extends to his research, and we’re excited to… Continue Reading
Earlier this year we featured a study by UNMC ID Drs. Sara Bares and Susan Swindells: “Midwest pharmacists’ familiarity, experience, and willingness to provide pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV.” We’re excited to share an update on their work building inter-professional relationships to increase PrEP education and use in Nebraska that was recently published in Open Forum Infectious Diseases: “Acceptability and feasibility of a pharmacist-led HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis… Continue Reading
