Posts Tagged ‘Acute Healthcare’
Updates from the Healthcare Infection Society’s 2018 conference
We enjoyed the recent Healthcare Infection Society’s 2018 conference in Liverpool, and thought we’d share a few highlights. You can view all of the submitted abstracts here and the invited abstracts here. The role of the environment in the transmission of HCAI was a strong theme throughout the conference, with key speakers discussing the relative importance of contaminated…
Read MoreLooking back to IPS 2018
It’s been a month or two since the 2018 Infection Prevention Society Conference in Glasgow, Scotland. So, we thought it would be a good time to look back and remind ourselves of some of the highlights from our point of view. You can access all of the IPS abstracts here. – Andreas Voss gave a fabulous…
Read MoreThe 2018 ESPAUR Report: progress but worrying trends
The 2018 English Surveillance Programme for Antimicrobial Utilisation and Resistance (ESPAUR) report has just been released by Public Health England (PHE) and, as with most reports the results show a mixed picture. The good news is that total antibiotic consumption has fallen by 6% over the past four years and is [now] at the lowest level since…
Read MoreConsidering the risk of contamination of privacy curtains in hospitals
A Canadian study reports the findings of a prospective survey of bacterial contamination of privacy curtains in hospitals. The curtains became contaminated with antibiotic resistant bacteria within weeks of being introduced into the clinical environment. The calls into question the management of privacy curtains in the healthcare setting. Previous studies have found that privacy curtains can be contaminated…
Read MoreExtensive environmental contamination with carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii
A study from Singapore has highlighted extensive environmental contamination with carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii in the ICU. This reinforces the need for enhanced environmental measures to reduce the transmission of carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii in the ICU setting. Carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii is in many ways a scary organism: it’s highly resistant to antibiotics with few therapeutic options left in some cases, seems to spread readily…
Read MorePreventing surgical site infections
A useful review published recently in an orthopaedic surgery journal (by Katarincic et al.) covers the various interventions that are often introduced to reduce the risk of surgical site infection (SSI). The evidence for some interventions is stronger than others, but there’s much we can do throughout the patient journey to reduce the risk of SSI, from…
Read MoreColistin resistance genes found lurking on hospital surfaces
The emergence of colistin resistance in antibiotic resistant Gram-negative bacteria like CPE is a real concern. An Italian study just published has discovered colistin-resistance genes (mcr-1) on hospital surfaces. This raises the worrying possibility that hospital surfaces could be an important reservoir from which colistin resistance genes could spread to bacteria that cause healthcare-associated infection, making infections…
Read MoreAre surfaces a hidden reservoir for Mycobacterium contamination of heater-cooler units?
There’s an emerging global epidemic of Mycobacterium chimaera infections following cardiothoracic surgery associated with contaminated heater-cooler units (machines that are used in theatre during some procedures). It has been established that water within the machines can become contaminated with Mycobacterium species, and that this can create a bio-aerosol that finds its way into the surgical field and causes an…
Read MoreDry surface biofilms: it’s time for action
We blogged last week about a lab study illustrating the potential for dry surface biofilms to harbour bacteria that can then be transferred via the hands of healthcare workers. This week, a new study in the Journal of Hospital Infection illustrates dramatically the scale of the problem of dry surface biofilms in hospitals: a whopping 95% of 61 surfaces…
Read MoreThe role of dry surface biofilm in spreading hospital pathogens
We have discovered only in recent years that dry surface biofilms are commonplace on hard surfaces in hospital. A recent Australian study illustrates clearly (and alarmingly!) that bacteria can be transferred from dry surface biofilms to the hands of healthcare workers – and so probably have an important role in transmission. This simple lab study evaluated the…
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