Launching New - "PREVENT MRSA NOW" CAMPAIGN
MSN launches new campaign -" PREVENT MRSA NOW" which targets healthcare facilities
and challenges Infection Preventionists to use a comprehensive approach to eradicate healthcare-acquired infections,
namely MRSA. Using a proven comprehensive approach will save many lives!
1. Screen at-risk patients upon admission and decolonize those that are found positive.
2. Use isolation precautions in a single room or cohort patients that are positive in one room. Requires
all persons entering the room ( personnel and family members ) to don gloves and gowns with hand washing first. Designated
equipment must be left in the room and only used by patients in that room: such as a stethosccope, blood pressure cuff, etc.
3. Strict Adherence to Hand Hygiene
All
persons entering the room must wash their hands and then put gloves on and when leaving the room, remove gloves , wash hands
again before leaving the room.
4. Decontaminating the environment
in healthcare facilities. Rooms must be cleaned thoroughly with
a disinfectant that kills known pathogens and frequently touched surfaces must be scrubbed thoroughly each time a new patient comes into the room. Frequently touched surfaces
such as TV remotes, bedrails, phone, tray table, bathroom faucets and light switches should be cleaned frequently.
5. Prudent use of antibiotics. Doctors should culture patients to determine as quickly as possible
what the organism is that is causing the infection so the correct antibiotics can be used. Last resort antibiotics should
not be used if other class of drugs can work, otherwise resistance will continue. Doctors should educate patients on
reasons why they should finish all antibiotics and not to share them with others.
These five steps can save many lives and should be used by all healthcare workers all of the time.
WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION's WORLD ALLIANCE FOR PATIENT SAFTY
Jeanine Thomas joins the WHO's World Alliance for Patient Safety and has been designated a "Patient Champion".
WHO officials have stated that "Jeanine is changing the world of infection control". Her expertise on MRSA
and other pathogens help to educate us all on a comprehensive approach to prevention and eradicating these diseases.
SCREENING SAVES LIVES
Again, another study this spring was
released proving that screening (surveillance) for MRSA works in drastically reducing MRSA infections - this one is from Evanston
Northwestern Healthcare and Dr. Lance Peterson in Illinois.
With nearly 200 studies showing that screening
of at-risk patients does control MRSA and entire northern European countries and western Australia using screening and isolation,
why is the CDC ( The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ) dragging it's feet while so much needless pain and suffering
along with deaths are occurring?
You would think that the CDC would make MRSA screening a priority in
their lax and lengthy guidelines and revise them.
The CDC wants all Americans to be screened for HIV, but
not MRSA, which more people die and are infected from than HIV. How many more people need to tragically die and
be infected?
Every single healthcare facility in the U.S. should be screening all at-risk patients for MRSA and
FOLLOWING THE 2003 SHEA GUIDELINE TO CONTROL MRSA AND VRE. If they started today, it would still take ten years to get the
MRSA epidemic under control - that is how out-of-control this disease is.
LINK
TO Evanston Northwestern Healthcare
