July 2005
Dear Colleague:
Looking for a safety tool?
The Premier Safety Institute has all the tools featured in past Safety Share issues indexed by topic and
date in a handy spreadsheet for download or online review in the
newsletter's archives.
Coming soon - more on quality!
If you are a reader that also browses the thousands of pages of
Safety Topics A to Z on our Safety
Web site, we will be expanding to include both quality and safety resources,
tools, and solutions.
Sincerely,
Gina Pugliese, editor
Vice President, Premier Safety Institute
News
- IHI's Donald Berwick appointed honorary knight by Queen Elizabeth II
- Pennsylvania first to disclose hospital-acquired infections
- Surgical infections drop with antimicrobial prophylaxis compliance; CMS suspends antimicrobial selection measure, citing shortages and need for consensus
- Premier hospitals work to reduce noise, promote safer patient environment
- AHRQ compendium addresses safety culture through hospital design
- Infection control critical to prevent HCV transmission − lessons from two outbreaks
- Legionnaire's cases prompt legislation; traditional prevention methods still apply
- Upcoming 2005 Quality Colloquium focuses on patient safety, error reduction
- CDC's early release of 2005 flu vaccine guidance clarifies role of live-attenuated vaccines in healthcare workers
Safety tools
- Medication strategy tools − Reconciliation across the continuum
- AMA primer − increase immunizations
- Sharps book − Compendium of sharps injury prevention resources
- ECRI checklists − Tools for managing obese patients
- H2E teleconference − Alternative medical waste treatment
- CDC Web-based self study − TB modules
- Indoor air quality − Course on infection control in healthcare construction
IHI's Donald Berwick appointed honorary knight by Queen Elizabeth II
Donald Berwick, M.D., a Harvard Medical School professor and head of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) in Boston, will be made an honorary knight by England's Queen Elizabeth II for his efforts to improve healthcare in Britain's National Health Service. The title of Knight Commander − the highest honor available to someone who is not a British citizen − will be bestowed upon Berwick at a ceremony later this year for his role in helping the British government modernize its National Health Service since the mid-1990s. Berwick was also involved in the planning and program set-up of Britain's new National Patient Safety Agency. A pediatrician who has written extensively about healthcare policy, Berwick was appointed to a healthcare advisory panel by President Clinton in 1997. Other Americans awarded honorary British knighthoods in recent years include Bill Gates, Rudolph Giuliani, Alan Greenspan, and Steven Spielberg.
Full press release Berwick-Honorary Knight (.pdf) (98 KB)
More information on IHI, go to: http://www.ihi.org
Pennsylvania first to disclose hospital-acquired infections
Pennsylvania is one of a handful of states that require hospitals to report healthcare-associated infections and now is the first state to publicly report them. More than 30 other state legislatures have bills that would require disclosure. Pennsylvania's requirements remain the most far-reaching. In a press release on July 13, 2005, the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council (PHC4), an independent state agency, reported that in 2004, more than 11,600 patients developed infections in Pennsylvania hospitals, resulting in 1,793 deaths at an added cost of $2 billion. Specific details of hospital-acquired infections in Pennsylvania are published in a PHC4 Research Brief.
The goal of public reporting is to provide transparency for consumers to choose hospitals with lower rates of infection where the care is believed to be safer. In addition, public reporting is expected to drive improvements needed to reduce infection rates. Public reporting of infection data has been applauded by many, including Patrick J. Brennan M.D., co-chair of PHC4's Healthcare Associated Infection Advisory Panel, who stated in a recent interview with Premier Safety Share, "Hospital epidemiologists and infection control professionals welcome this endorsement for their long-standing efforts." Dr. Brennan's endorsement is particularly noteworthy since he is not only the chief medical officer at the University of Pennsylvania, but also serves as the co-chair of the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Epidemiologists urge hospitals to use established data collection and analysis methods for healthcare associated infections (HAI) developed by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). CDC's methodology requires an in-depth chart review since administrative data retrieval systems are not designed to capture healthcare-associated infections (HAI). Specifically, administrative codes that identify infections cannot distinguish whether the patient entered the hospital with an infection for treatment or acquired it during care.
Dr. Brennan also commented on data interpretation, "Broadly speaking, infection rates are merely numbers and their meaning may not be apparent on the face of the data. Do they represent poor quality performance by hospitals and staff or flaws in the accumulation and interpretation of the data? Do they reflect the fact that some institutions treat more severely ill patients? It is likely all of the above. Providers will have to be open-minded about the possibility that the data represent the unthinkable - that their quality of care is not satisfactory.
Collaboration needed for successIn an editorial by Weinstein, Siegel and Brennan in the July 21, 2005 issue of
New England Journal of Medicine, the authors note that "report card infections
are a reality ... and their success will require interdisciplinary
collaboration, a great deal of commitment of resources to infection prevention
practices, and conspicuous inclusion of these efforts in patient safety
programs." In addition, they point out that research is still needed to "assess
whether such reports improve patient safety," concluding "that these challenges
present an unprecedented opportunity to improve patient care."
PHC4 Press release (.doc) (34 KB)
PHC4 Research brief (.pdf) (108 KB)
Surgical infections drop with antimicrobial prophylaxis compliance; CMS suspends antimicrobial selection measure, citing shortages and need for consensus
A collaborative of 56 hospitals reported a 26 percent reduction in surgical site infection rates following a systems redesign to maximize compliance with national quality improvement measures, including antimicrobial prophylaxis. Following release of the study results, CMS temporarily suspended public reporting of the hospital performance the measure for appropriate antimicrobial selection for surgical prophylaxis, citing drug shortages and a need for consensus on vancomycin use and endocarditis prophylaxis.
Historical data show opportunities to improve in surgical antimicrobial prophylaxis
Although available evidence for effectiveness of antimicrobials in reducing the risk of surgical site
infections (SSIs) has been available for more than two decades, numerous studies have demonstrated
inappropriate timing, selection, and excess post-operative duration of administration of antimicrobial
prophylaxis. This prompted a national collaborative in 2002 to promote effective practices. Baseline
data collected in 2001 for this national collaborative, known as the National Surgical Infection Prevention
Project (SIPP) and sponsored by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) through the state
Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs), revealed substantial opportunities to improve in the use of
prophylactic surgical antimicrobial prophylaxis. Specifically, data on 34,133 Medicare surgical inpatients,
published by Bratzler and colleagues in the Archives of Surgery, found that only
55.7 percent of patients received an antimicrobial dose within one hour before incision and only 40.7
percent of patients had their antimicrobial prophylaxis discontinued within 24 hours after surgery.
The greatest compliance was for the administration of antimicrobial agents consistent with published
guidelines − with 92.6 percent of the patients receiving appropriate agents.
Compliance with recommended measures demonstrates reduction in infections
In a study published by Dellinger and colleagues in the
American Journal of
Surgery,
a collaborative of 56 hospitals reported a reduction in surgical site infection rates following a redesign
their systems to maximize compliance with national quality improvement measures, including antimicrobial
prophylaxis. In this one-year demonstration project sponsored by CMS, the hospitals agreed to focus on
and provide aggregate data for three process measures that CMS uses as national quality measures: 1)
administration of antimicrobials within 60 minutes of the surgical incision; 2) appropriate antimicrobial
selection based on published guidelines; and 3) discontinuation of antimicrobial agents within 24 hours
after surgery.
In addition, most hospitals also monitored and reported progress on one or more additional process measures to reduce surgical site infections, including control of glucose levels during surgery, avoiding hypothermia during surgery, use of supplemental oxygen during surgery and recovery, and clipping rather than shaving the surgical site. Forty-four hospitals reported data on 35,543 cases. The overall surgical site infection rate fell 27 percent from 2.3 percent to 1.7 percent in the first versus the last three months of the study. Compliance with the three CMS antimicrobial prophylaxis measures had risen significantly and by the end of the study, median compliance rates were 92 percent for antimicrobial timing; 95 percent for appropriate antimicrobial selection; and 85 percent for discontinuation of antibiotics within 24 hours.
A redesign of the system to achieve compliance with recommended measures was an important part of this collaborative and included multiple improvements. For example, many hospitals found that there was not one person in the perioperative routine who had acknowledged responsibility for administration of the prophylactic antibiotic. Performance improved dramatically when accountability was made clear, such as having the anesthesiologist administer the antibiotic at skin preparation. The process design measures used by successful hospitals are summarized in a table. The teams at each hospital worked with their local QIOs and communicated frequently with each other to share information about implementing improvements, barriers encountered, and lessons learned. CMS plans to launch an initiative, called the Surgical Care Improvement Project (SCIP), to expand QIO efforts to help hospitals make surgery safer. The SCIP initiative will include measures for antimicrobial prophylaxis, normothermia, oxygenation, glucose control and appropriate hair removal, among others.
CMS suspends SIP measure for appropriate
antimicrobial section
CMS, along with the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), have agreed
to temporarily suspend public reporting of hospital performance on SIP-2
(appropriate antimicrobial selection for surgical prophylaxis). CMS and JCAHO
announced that they will continue to collect the data but will not publicly
report performance on this measure on Hospital Compare.
Reasons for temporary suspension, as noted in a joint statement by CMS and JCAHO, include: 1) lack of clarity and agreement on which high-risk patients may benefit from vancomycin antimicrobial prophylaxis, such as patients in hospitals with a "high rate" of infections from methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA); 2) national shortages of antibiotics recommended for prophylaxis, i.e. cefotetan disodium and cefotoxin; and 3) conflicting recommendations on prophylaxis for prevention of endocarditis from the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association.
Quality experts note that suspending the SIP-2 measure for "appropriate antimicrobial agent" will not have significant impact because compliance with this measure has been relatively high since baseline data collected by CMS for the SIPP Project showed 92.6 percent compliance in 2001, as reported by Bratzler and colleagues.
Bratzler, Archives of Surgery (.doc) (48 KB)
American Journal of Surgery, July 2005 abstract (.doc) (28 KB)
Process design table (.doc) (30 KB)
To read the AHQA news release, go to:
http://www.ahqa.org/pub/media/159_678_5198.cfm
Fact sheet, "QIOs Target Surgical Infections,"
http://www.ahqa.org/pub/media/159_766_5199.cfm
Complete AHQA statement available at:
http://www.ahqa.org/pub/media/159_678_5197.cfm
JCAHO CMS joint statement - Suspension of SIP-2
(.pdf) (34 KB)
Hospital Compare, http://www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov
Premier hospitals work to reduce noise, promote safer patient environment
Improved practices to reduce noise from staff, cleaning equipment, and routine operations have been implemented in several Detroit-area hospitals. One hospital has installed an "electronic ear" that alerts workers of noise levels by changing colors. Premier member Harper University Hospital-Detroit Medical Center has installed a glass wall around the nurses' station in the cardiac unit to prevent sound from traveling to patient rooms. Another Premier member, Henry Ford Hospital, has filled the halls with subdued instrumental music intended to create a peaceful atmosphere.
Other practices include restricting construction crew hours and taking steps to ensure that the rooms closest to the work zone remain empty. Visual reminders to speak softly and move quietly plus giving each nurse a cell phone, eliminating overhead paging, are among techniques employed at one hospital. The facility is installing insulated tiles and soundproof doors to prevent noise from traveling. Some hospitals are adding extra padding to boxes used to store current patients charts and are scheduling noisy cleaning procedures during times when patients are less likely to be disturbed. For more on noise reduction and the relationship to health effects, see "AHRQ compendium: How to develop culture of safety."
Hospitals Noise reduction (.doc) (30 KB)
Safety Institute Construction module
AHRQ compendium addresses safety culture through hospital design
Volume 2 (Concepts and Methodology) of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's (AHRQ) compendium, Advances in Patient Safety: From Research to Implementation, includes a challenge of the traditional view of facility design and how it relates to patient safety. John G. Reiling, St. Joseph's Hospital of West Bend, WI, champions a design for safety in "Creating a Culture of Patient Safety through Innovative Hospital Design" Reiling summarizes the multiple techniques used to improve safety through design, including noise reduction, noting that noise can increase blood pressure, increase pain, alter quality of sleep, and reduce overall perceived patient satisfaction.
Reiling describes the traditional hospital design process as giving the architects program objectives, room requirements, and constraints, such as the need to locate certain departments near others. This results in a block diagram and then a room-by-room overall schematic, followed by room layout and construction documents. Traditional design processes give no specific mention of patient safety and how it may be impacted by technology or equipment, although this is changing in the 2006 revision of the AIA/FGI Guidelines for Design and Constructions of Hospitals and Healthcare Facilities.
SynergyHealth, the regional health system to which St. Joseph's Hospital belongs, conducted a national learning lab to help plan its new facility. Reiling said the learning lab identified latent conditions, which are pre-existing circumstances regarding facility, equipment, and processes that contribute to, or combine with, active failures to produce error. Latent conditions include lack of standardization of equipment and procedures, poor visibility, high noise levels, and excessive movement of patients. Once identified, these conditions can be changed with the use of safety barriers before they can contribute to an adverse effect. In St. Joseph's facility design process, reducing noise ranked number six among the top 10 recommendations aimed at minimizing latent conditions that create error within healthcare. The learning lab's research discovered that noise may negatively affect the quality of the healing environment for patients, and can increase blood pressure, increase pain, alter quality of sleep, and reduce overall perceived patient satisfaction. St. Joseph's reduced noise through the use of stronger steel, carpeting, standardized single rooms with insulation between rooms, more absorbent ceiling tiles, quiet-engineered mechanical systems, quiet-engineered equipment and technology, and elimination of overhead paging. For more on noise reduction, see "Premier hospitals work to reduce noise, promote safer patient environment."
AHRQ chapter, "Creating a Culture of Patient Safety"
(.doc) (616 KB)
For the Adobe PDF version, go to Volume 2 in the AHRQ compendium at: http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/advances/
For more on Reiling and design for safety, see Construction on the Safety Institute's Web site.
Infection control critical to prevent HCV transmission − lessons from two outbreaks
Two recent studies describing outbreaks involving more than 100 patients conclude that strong infection control programs are needed in clinics to prevent outbreaks of infectious diseases such as hepatitis C virus (HCV).
In the June 7 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine, de Oliveira et al describe an outbreak of HCV infection among 99 patients in a hematology/oncology clinic. The researchers found that shared saline bags were most likely contaminated when syringes used to draw blood from venous catheters were also used to withdraw saline solution from the saline bags. Prior to the outbreak identification, the facility had no active infection control program.
A second study by Comstock et al. reported an investigation of a cluster of six patients developing HCV infection in a pain remediation clinic (see Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology) and showed higher HCV infection rates among patients treated after an HCV-infected patient during the same visit time. A nurse anesthetist had been using the same syringe-needle combination to sequentially administer sedation medications to every treated patient each clinic day. The researchers concluded that education and stricter oversight of infection control practices are critical to preventing future outbreaks.
In the Annals editorial, Richard P. Wenzel, M.D., discusses patient-to-patient transmission of HCV and suggests several reasons for this. Possible causes include the heavy workload of doctors and nurses, cost containment, which may lead to the reuse of multi-dose vials for expensive drugs, and an unthinking force of habit while performing routine care. The recommended solution is to maintain current infection control practices and to review these practices annually. He also recommends that use of pre-filled single use syringes for flushing catheters should be the norm as well as shielding all patients with a vascular access line from exposure to a roommate infected with a blood-borne pathogen.
In contrast, a zero rate of HCV transmission in patients undergoing endoscopy is attributed to strong infection control programs and policies and is documented in Ciancio's prospective study in the same issue of the Annals. Researchers in this study note that all patients had their procedure performed with an instrument that had been previously used on the same day. The authors correlate the lack of transmission with cleaning, disinfection and drying procedures routinely used between patients. Wenzel states that while the absence of HCV may be from an inherently low rate of transmission after endoscopy, the study highlights that continuous systematic use of infection control practices may have been responsible.
Abstract, de Oliveira (.doc) (29 KB)
Abstract, Comstock (.doc) (25 KB)
Abstract, Wenzel (.pdf) (66 KB)
Abstract, Ciancio (.doc) (30 KB)
Legionnaire’s cases prompt legislation; traditional prevention methods still apply
Legislation to require hospitals to report all cases of infectious disease was passed in the New York State Senate after New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center disclosed that at least seven patients contracted Legionnaires' disease during a 14-month period. The bill would require hospitals to report infectious disease cases to the state health department and make the information public. A New York Daily News article indicated that the hospital reported the first of four cases to the state health department in March, triggering an ongoing probe. Legionella bacteria are commonly found in water pipes and are not usually harmful. But in a hospital setting, the bacteria can attack elderly patients or those with compromised immune systems, giving patients a form of pneumonia.
Hospital officials state they are taking measures to eliminate the Legionella bacteria from the water pipes. Measures include installing new equipment, hyperchlorinating the hospital's water supply, and providing patients and staff with bottled water. The state Health Department is conducting an ongoing probe of the situation and last month announced that the hospital had "taken the appropriate steps to safeguard patients and staff." However, some New York lawmakers feel the state investigation is insufficient and want the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to lead efforts to contain the bacteria. Legionella investigations however, are complex and require basic infection control techniques to determine whether all identified cases are related. Actions reported to date appear to indicate that standard CDC recommendations for control and eradication are being followed. Another cluster of Legionnaires' cases was reported in early July at Sound Shore Medical Center in New Rochelle, NY. The nine who contracted the infection were all outpatients and may be linked to a potentially contaminated cooling tower near the hospital. All patients are either in stable condition or have fully recovered. Cooling towers have frequently been implicated in similar types of outbreaks.
Premier's Safety Institute provides a comprehensive list of guidelines, including the "CDC Guideline for Environmental Infection Control in Health-Care Facilities, 2003." This guideline provides background information, literature review and recommendations for maintaining water quality and specifically address prevention and control of Legionella in healthcare facilities.
Summary of articles from New York newspapers, June 2005 (.doc) (32 KB)
CDC Guideline for Environmental Infection Control in Health-Care Facilities, 2003
Upcoming 2005 Quality Colloquium focuses on patient safety, error reduction
Patient safety officers and other healthcare executives who want to gain practical insights into healthcare quality improvement and medical error reduction should plan on attending the Healthcare Quality Colloquium (link below) at Harvard University, August 21-24, 2005, in Cambridge, MA.
Premier's Safety Institute joins the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP), the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), and the National Quality Forum (NQF) and others in sponsoring this conference.
Now in its fifth year, the Healthcare Quality Colloquium will provide a strategic road map for healthcare purchasers, plans and providers in their efforts to enhance patient safety, reduce medical errors, and improve healthcare quality. Colloquium tracks will explore such issues as:
- Advanced patient safety strategies;
- Progress the patient safety movement has made since publication of the Institute of Medicine's Landmark Study, "To Err is Human";
- Transparency, public reporting/scorecards and accountability as quality drivers;
- Six Sigma as a healthcare quality initiative;
- Providing incentives for quality, including pay for performance;
- The role of health information technology in quality; and
- Using Baldrige criteria to achieve performance excellence; and patient safety as an international movement.
Faculty
This four-day conference includes keynote addresses by Former Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill;
Leonard D. Schaeffer, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of WellPoint Health Networks; and David J.
Shulkin, M.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Beth Israel Medical Center, New York.
Among the featured faculty will be Stephanie C. Alexander, Senior Vice President, Healthcare Informatics and Gina Pugliese, Vice President, Safety Institute, Premier, Inc.
Other faculty include: Peter B. Angood, M.D.; Beau Carter; Barry P. Chaiken, M.D.; Carolyn M. Clancy, M.D.; Janet M. Corrigan, Ph.D; Francois de Brantes; Sir Liam Donaldson, M.D.; Atul Gawande, M.D., MPH; Stuart Guterman; Kenneth W. Kizer, M.D., MPH; Janet Marchibroda; Arthur Miller, Esq.; Jeremy Nobel, M.D., MPH; Peggy E. O'Kane; Jane Poulter, BSN, MSA; Meredith B. Rosenthal, Ph.D.; Shoshanna Sofaer, MPH, DrPH; Martin J. Hatlie, Esq; and Trent Haywood, M.D.
Visit the conference Web site for complete faculty listing, detailed agenda, and exhibit information at: http://www.qualitycolloquium.com.
CDC’s early release of 2005 flu vaccine guidance clarifies role of live-attenuated vaccines in healthcare workers
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an early release of its 2005 guidance for influenza vaccine administration that encourages healthy healthcare workers less than 50 years of age to opt for the live attenuated vaccine. The agency advised the vaccine be delivered as a nasal spray if the inactivated injectable vaccine is in short supply, but only if target workers can avoid contact with severely immunosuppressed patients for at least seven days. Other new or updated recommendations are provided regarding vaccination of persons with conditions leading to compromise of the respiratory system, clarification of the role of live, attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV) in vaccine shortage, and selection of 2005-2006 vaccine virus strains.
Premier resources for Influenza - CDC Recommendations
Safety tools
Medication strategy tools − Reconciliation across the continuum
Reconciling medications across the continuum of care is a new 2005 JCAHO safety goal. Experience has shown that poor communication of medical information at transition points is responsible for as many as 50 percent of all medication errors in the hospital and up to 20 percent of adverse drug events. A Massachusetts Coalition Web site describes how a group of hospitals in Massachusetts implemented a medication reconciliation strategy and provides various tools and forms for others to adopt or adapt. Go to http://www.macoalition.org and look under "Coalition Initiatives," then "Reconciling Medications."
AMA primer − increase immunizations
The American Medical Association (AMA) has released a new primer designed to help physicians improve immunization rates, particularly in minority populations. The primer, "Roadmaps for Clinical Practice, Improving Immunization: Addressing Racial and Ethnic Populations," addresses the leading health indicator of immunization and infectious diseases, with a special focus on reducing racial and ethnic disparities in immunizations. In addition to resources, the primer provides tools to help physicians ensure that patients are up-to-date with their vaccinations and includes immunization schedules for both children and adults. The primer is the latest volume in the AMA's "Roadmaps for Clinical Practice: Case Studies in Disease Prevention and Health Promotion" series, which provides physicians and other health professionals with clinical strategies and tools to address the leading causes of preventable morbidity and premature mortality. The project is supported by an unrestricted educational grant from Sanofi Pasteur and is available online at http://www.ama-assn.org/go/roadmaps.
Sharps book − Compendium of sharps injury prevention resources
The Compendium of Infection Control Technologies is a resource book for healthcare organizations, clinicians and others designed to make it easier to find sharps injury prevention, blood exposure prevention and infection control products that can protect patients, healthcare workers and others. A cooperative effort from medical device and infection control product manufacturers, the Compendium is sponsored by the Premier Safety Institute, ISIPS, Managing Infection Control magazine, AOHP and NAPPSI. It will be published both as a printed book and as an e-book. For more information, call 801.280.8797 or send an e-mail to info@medicalsafetybook.com.
ECRI checklists − Tools for managing obese patients
A checklist that can aid safety and environmental managers managing obese patients is now available on the Healthcare Hazard Control (HHC) Members' Web site. The list can help staff ensure that a healthcare facility's physical structures and equipment safely accommodates extremely obese patients and visitors. An assessment tool to guide caregivers on the safe handling of extremely obese patients has also been added. To review the checklist and assessment tool, login at http://www.ecri.org, click "HHC Homepage," and click the "Sample Policies" link on the left-hand side of the screen. The tools can be found under the "Miscellaneous" heading. An analysis on the safe accommodation of extremely obese patients and visitors will be published in the August 2005 HHC mailing.
H2E teleconference − Alternative medical waste treatment
Alternatives to using medical waste incinerators for treating regulated medical waste were the
focus of a free teleconference July 8, 2005, hosted by Hospitals for a Healthy Environment (H2E).
Teleconference speaker Sally M. Patterson, regulated medical waste program coordinator, New York State
Department of Health, discussed the advantages and disadvantages of using alternative treatment technologies
approved in the state of New York, including low-heat treating systems, high-heat treating systems,
and chemical treatment systems. Additional information is available from H2E at:
http://www.h2e-online.org/events/teleconf/index.cfm.
The slide presentation, (.ppt) (329 KB) as well as a chart of alternative technologies (.pdf) (163 KB) can be downloaded.
CDC Web-based self study − TB modules
"Self-Study Modules on Tuberculosis," a new education tool specifically designed for healthcare workers and other professionals involved in the identification, treatment, and care of individuals with tuberculosis and latent tuberculosis infection is now available. The tool is the result of a partnership between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Division of Tuberculosis Elimination and the Division of Media and Training Services. These courses are also appropriate for staff of correctional facilities, drug treatment centers, migrant clinics, nursing homes, homeless shelters, or other facilities serving persons with or at risk for tuberculosis. Each course has a separate set of modules, registration process, exam, and credits. The modules can also be worked through without registering. Content from both the print-based self-study modules on Tuberculosis and the video-based "A Satellite Primer on Tuberculosis" was used to create Self-Study Modules on Tuberculosis that can be delivered via the World Wide Web. The modules can be accessed at: http://www.phppo.cdc.gov/phtn/tbmodules/default.htm.
Indoor air quality − Course on infection control in healthcare construction
The longest-running series on infection control issues related to construction in healthcare facilities will be offered once again on September 15-16, 2005, in Minneapolis, MN. The eleventh annual Health Care Facility Construction Management: Indoor Air Quality course is being offered by the University of Minnesota in cooperation with the Premier Safety Institute and the Center for Energy and Environment. This course offers strategies to reduce construction-related risks of infection in healthcare facilities. The course objectives include:
- Understanding healthcare construction trends as they impact patient risks and infection control risk guidelines.
- Identifying patient risk management strategies and problem-solving tools that are central to an infection control management plan.
- Applying, with the help of a team of experts, an infection control risk management plan.
- Identifying surveillance for ongoing monitoring and acceptance criteria for healthcare facility commissioning.
Download the course brochure (.pdf) (102 KB), or go to: http://www.cce.umn.edu/conferences/healthcare/.
Back to Safety tools | Back to top
Editorial team
- Gina Pugliese, RN, MS editor
- Judene Bartley, MS, MPH, CIC, associate editor
- John Hall, BSJ, contributor
- Judith Luca, RN, BSN, contributor
- Derek Kleckner, BA, Web master
About Premier
Premier, Inc. is a healthcare alliance entirely owned by 200 of the nations leading not-for-profit hospital and healthcare systems. These systems operate or are affiliated with 1,500 hospital facilities and hundreds of other healthcare sites. Premier provides an array of resources supporting health services delivery, including clinical and operational comparative data applications for quality/safety performance improvement, group purchasing and supply chain services, and insurance programs. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has recently partnered with Premier for a three-year quality incentive demonstration project. Participating hospitals using Premier’s Perspective Online ™ database can receive recognition and additional Medicare payment when they meet or exceed specific quality measures.
