Category: Infection Prevention and Control
EMR Order Set Speeds Time to Antibiotic Treatment in Musculoskeletal Infections
Dr. Angela Hewlett spends her time at UNMC not only studying Ebola but also working to prevent and manage musculoskeletal infections. In addition to publishing this year’s update on “What’s New in Musculoskeletal Infection,” she collaborated with orthopedic surgeons, trauma surgeons, and emergency physicians to design and implement a new order set in the UNMC […]
Nov 5, 2019
Celebrating Global Handwashing Day!
Established by the Global Handwashing Partnership in 2008, Global Handwashing Day is celebrated each year on October 15 as a way to increase awareness and understanding of the benefits of handwashing with soap. Global Handwashing Day is an opportunity to get involved in creative ways to encourage people to wash their hands with soap at critical times. […]
Oct 15, 2019
How Clean is the Hub?
New UNMC ID publication alert! #ReadUNMCID Recently, several members of the Division of Infectious Diseases at UNMC/Nebraska Medicine published a study in American Journal of Infection Control (AJIC) entitled: Microbial colonization of intravascular catheter connectors in hospitalized patients. Drs. Richard Hankins (former ID fellow, class of 2019), and Kelly Cawcutt (Associate Medical Director of Infection […]
Aug 19, 2019
Placing PICCs for Antibiotics – Potential Undue Risks May Outweight Benefits
PICC placement is common practice for intravenous (IV) antibiotic needs, however, we may be inadvertently placing certain patients at higher risks for complications. A recent study by Paje et al assessed the frequency of PICC placement among patients with CKD stage 3b or greater, a practice discordant with current guidelines. This prospective study included data […]
Jul 19, 2019
A Day in the Life of Central Venous Access Devices
This post comes courtesy of Dr. Mark Rupp, who recently published a study in the Journal of Infusion Nursing about outpatient maintenance practices for central venous access devices (CVADs)! Our patients are increasingly receiving intravenous therapy at home via indwelling CVADs. However, limited data exist regarding patients’ experiences with outpatient CVADs. Regina Nailon is the […]
Jun 18, 2019
Preparing for Measles – What You Need to Know
Measles is one of the most contagious infections and is acute respiratory viral infection currently causing an outbreak of infection through the United States. Measles was first described hundreds of years ago and became a reportable infection in the US in 1912. In 1963, the first vaccine for measles became available. Efforts focused on measles […]
Jun 6, 2019
UNMC IDSHEAROES Enter the Race Against Resistance – Read Their Top Ten Reasons
Life-threatening infections caused by antimicrobial resistant organisms, commonly referred to as ‘superbugs’ have taken the media by storm. MRSA, VRE, MDRO, KPC, CRE, CDI – all acronyms that put fear in our hearts that one day, we will have run out of treatment options. That one day, our patients will die from infections that we […]
Jun 1, 2019
When you see CRE: Add Equal Parts Antimicrobial Stewardship and Infection Control
The following was previously posted by Dr. Marcelin to SHEA Journal Club published online in April 2019. Dealing with carbapenem resistant organisms presents both an antimicrobial stewardship and infection control problem. Richter et al. aimed to predict risk factors for carbapenem resistance among Gram-negative rods (CR-GNR). The authors were particularly interested in whether differences exist […]
May 2, 2019
At the end of 2018, we remember and respect Influenza, 100 years after the great pandemic
The Mother of All Pandemics In the 1918-1919 calendar year, the world experienced the worst influenza pandemic in modern times. Coming on the heels of WWI, the H1N1 pandemic occurred in three waves – in the spring of 1918, fall 1918 and spring 1919. Estimates suggest that the pandemic infected a third of the world’s […]
Dec 26, 2018
Does the Clostridium Smell Diffy? Even the Dogs Disagree…
The C. difficile sniffing dogs are back! There are several prior reports of individual dogs being trained to “sniff out” C. difficile. In a novel approach, the authors of this study trained two dogs simultaneously, and then compared interrater reliability between sniff attempts. They used toxigenic C. difficile frozen stool samples (GDH EIA and PCR […]
Nov 5, 2018
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