nosocomial infection and its heavy financial cost is a well recognized problem. a variety of sources of organisms involved in nosocomial infection have been identified in recent years. one potential route of bacterial infection is contamination. in order to assess the importance of food contamination, we carried out a survey of bacterial examination of food and the kitchen environment of 14 hos...

We examine factors associated with hand hygiene practices of hospital patients. Hygiene in the hospital decreased compared to that at home, and home practices were strongly associated with hospital practices. Understanding and leveraging the intrinsic value some patients associate with hand hygiene may be important for improving overall hospital hygiene and decreasing healthcare-associated infe...

During the Singapore SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) outbreak, Khoo et al implemented a sensible approach to protecting patients and clinicians from nosocomial infection by the SARS coronavirus, and in this issue of the Journal they report on their strategy’s impact on clinical outcomes.1 Khoo et al draw attention to the many gaps in our understanding of infection-control during respir...

minders remains a major challenge to individualized feedback strategies. More intensive efforts, beyond poster campaigns, may be necessary to encourage patients to remind HCWs. Prior patient feedback strategies used one-on-one patient information sessions; however, inpatient turnover imposes continual resource demands on that approach. Clinical leaders are needed to openly invite their teams to...

African American, Hispanic/Latina, and American Indian/Alaska Native persons are markedly underrepresented racial and ethnic groups (UREG) in the dental hygiene profession. The purpose of this study was to survey UREG dental hygiene students to determine their perceptions of the barriers and facilitators that influenced their decision to enter the dental hygiene profession. Participants were ei...

Introduction / objectives Bach Mai tertiary hospital is a 1900 bed facility in Viet Nam. Previous hospital hand hygiene programs proved unsuccessful which prompted the director to launch an intensive hand hygiene campaign on 5 May 2009 to reduce health-care associated infection (HAI) using World Health Organization (WHO) tools. We would like to present the results and challenges of the Bach Mai...

BACKGROUND Hand hygiene compliance is the basis of infection control programs. In developing countries models to improve hand hygiene compliance to reduce healthcare acquired infections are required. The aim of this study was to determine hand hygiene compliance following an educational program in an obstetric and gynecological hospital in Vietnam. METHODS Health care workers from neonatal in...

Antibiotic resistance is a growing problem in the hospital setting. Organisms that cause hospital-acquired infections are generally highly resistant, requiring expensive antibiotics and further hospitalization. As a result, many owners of infected pets choose euthanasia. Appropriate hospital disinfection and staff hygiene practices can prevent such infections by reducing the pathogen load in a ...