American journal of infection control
-
Am J Infect Control · Dec 2007
Dissemination of the CDC's Hand Hygiene Guideline and impact on infection rates.
The diffusion of national evidence-based practice guidelines and their impact on patient outcomes often go unmeasured. ⋯ Wide dissemination of this Guideline was not sufficient to change practice. Only some hospitals had initiated multidisciplinary programs; practice change is unlikely without such multidisciplinary efforts and explicit administrative support.
-
Am J Infect Control · Dec 2007
Airflow and droplet spreading around oxygen masks: a simulation model for infection control research.
Respiratory assist devices, such as oxygen masks, may enhance the potential to spread infectious aerosols from patients with respiratory infections. ⋯ Health care workers may therefore consider any area within at least 0.4 m of a patient using such oxygen masks to be a potential nosocomial hazard zone.
-
Although hand hygiene is the most important measure in the prevention of nosocomial infection, adherence to recommendations among health care workers (HCW) is low. Evaluation of compliance with hand hygiene was carried out in a Spanish teaching hospital. ⋯ Low adherence observed suggests that new interventions should focus in modification of HCWs' habits and attitudes, working at several levels: individual and institutional.
-
Am J Infect Control · Dec 2007
Clinical TrialA controlled trial of universal gloving versus contact precautions for preventing the transmission of multidrug-resistant organisms.
Contact precautions are recommended to reduce the transmission of multidrug-resistant organisms. However, the optimal method for control of multidrug-resistant organisms remains unclear. ⋯ Compliance with universal gloving was significantly greater than compliance with contact precautions. However, greater compliance with hand hygiene was observed in the contact precautions phase. Measures must be in place to both increase and sustain hand hygiene compliance so as to minimize the risk of nosocomial cross transmission before reevaluating the concept of replacing contact precautions with universal gloving.
-
Am J Infect Control · Nov 2007
Epidemiology of hospital-acquired bloodstream infections in a Tunisian pediatric intensive care unit: a 2-year prospective study.
There are few data providing rates of nosocomial bloodstream infections (NBI) in pediatric intensive care patients from developing regions of the world. ⋯ Considering the high incidence of NBI resulted from multiple drug-resistant gram-negative rods in our center, implementation of improved infection control practices is required.