MOH cautious on flu shot fears

Unpublished Canadian data are raising concerns about whether it’s a good idea to get a seasonal flu shot this season.

Drawn from a series of studies from British Columbia, Quebec and Ontario, the data appear to suggest that people who got a seasonal flu shot last year are about twice as likely to catch swine flu as people who didn’t.

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Ontario’s chief medical officer of health Dr. Arlene King said she is concerned about the study but cautions that it is too early to jump to conclusions.

“We are obviously concerned about the information that has occurred and we have certainly seen no higher illness or death rates here in Ontario or anywhere else in the country compared to the rest of the world, so it’s very important for that information to be peer reviewed.”

Full Article: here.

Only 7 percent of hospitals meet Leapfrog medication error prevention (CPOE) standards and few hospitals are  meeting mortality standards, according to the 2008 Leapfrog Hospital Survey, released Wednesday.

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Other highlights of the 2008 hospital survey include:

• Low percentages of reporting hospitals are meeting volume and risk-adjusted mortality standards or adhering to nationally endorsed process measures for eight high-risk procedures, where following nationally endorsed and evidence-based guidelines is known to save lives:
  • 43 percent for heart bypass surgery;
  • 35 percent for heart angioplasty;
  • 32 percent for high-risk deliveries;
  • 23 percent for pancreatic resections;
  • 16 percent for bariatric surgery;
  • 15 percent for esophagectomy;
  • 7 percent for aortic valve replacement; and
  • 5 percent for aortic abdominal aneurysm repair.
• Sixty-five percent of participating hospitals do not have all recommended policies in place to prevent common hospital-acquired infections (HAIs).

Full article:  Most hospitals fall short on safety measures, Leapfrog survey shows

In a study funded by NIH, Harvard Medical School, and the Irish Health Research Board, researchers have found a method to accurately predict which patients will experience a recurrence of C.difficile infection:

The method correctly identified 77.3% of patients who had recurrent infection in a derivation cohort studied in 1998, according to Ciarán P. Kelly, M.D., of Harvard Medical School, and colleagues.

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C. difficile has become the leading cause of hospital-acquired infectious diarrhea. It affects millions of patients a year. Multiple recurrences are common, despite successful treatment of the initial episode

“This rule is valuable in clinical practice as it defines a high-risk population in whom awareness of the risk can facilitate more prompt recognition, diagnosis, and treatment of recurrent C. difficile,” Dr. Kelly said in a statement.

The rule combines three variables: age, disease severity, and antibiotic use.

Full article:  Clinical Rule Predicts C. Diff Recurrrence

Environmental cleaning intervention reduces transmission of multidrug-resistant organisms in ICUs

A rigorous environmental cleaning intervention can reduce the transmission of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and other multidrug-resistant organisms in hospital intensive care units (ICUs), according to a new study released today at the annual meeting of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA). Researchers found that following an enhanced cleaning protocol reduced the spread of MRSA to patients exposed to rooms in which the prior occupant had been colonized or infected.