BACKGROUND The federal state of Hesse, Germany, introduced a laboratory-based reporting scheme for carbapenem-resistant organisms (CROs). METHOD The results of the first year of mandated reporting of CROs from April 2012 through March 2013 to the Public Health Authority of Frankfurt/Main, responsible for a population of 700,000 inhabitants, are described. RESULTS Within a period of 12 month...

Surveillance of bacteraemia caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in the UK has involved collection of data from hospital microbiology laboratories via several mechanisms, including a voluntary reporting scheme that has been operational in England and Wales since 1989 and mandatory reporting schemes that have been running independently in England, Wales, Scotland and Nort...

people with mental illness have been replaced by a system of mandatory reporting to the newly established National Patient Safety Agency (Department of Health, 2001a: p. 24). This reflects a radical change in the way that adverse events or ‘near misses’ in medicine are to be investigated. Drawing on lessons from engineering on improving safety in aviation and the nuclear power industry, the Dep...

In June 2007 there were 210 people under 50 years of age living in residential aged care in Victoria, Australia, most of whom had acquired brain injuries. There are an average of 21 deaths per year in this group yet very little is known about the causes of such deaths. While the Coroners Act 2008 (Vic) requires mandatory reporting of "unexpected" and "accidental" deaths, anecdotal evidence and ...

Clinical documentation captured in a patient's record provides health care personnel with information that can be used to guide patient care. Data collected in electronic health records can be accessed and aggregated across the health care delivery system to enhance the safety, quality, and efficacy of care. The updated AORN "Guideline for patient information management" provides guidance to pe...

Health care professionals encounter many ethical issues in the care of persons who are HIV positive or who have been diagnosed as having AIDS. Such issues include the allocation of scarce resources for research and health care; the use of various methods of disease control, including mandatory testing, forced isolation, informing of sexual partners, and education; and the determination of the r...