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  Five steps to mitigate the risk of infection Protecting personnel and facilities from unseen bacteria and fungi is a daunting task for building managers as well as professional cleaning teams. Industry researchers developed antimicrobials to destroy disease-causing microbes, the most common of which are antibiotics, which target bacteria. Recently, however, there has been antibiotic [...]

On March 21, 2016, providers added a new regulatory compliance assessment to their checklist of HIPAA accountability. The Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights announced the start of the Phase 2 HIPAA Audit Program to ensure that “policies and procedures adopted by covered entities and their business associates meet selected standards [...]

By Thom Wellington This first appeared in the August 2016 issue of DOTmed HealthCare Business News For the last four months, I have spotlighted different ideas in this column on how to reduce costly health care-acquired infections (HAIs). Each column began with statistics outlining the cost of HAIs both in lives and in dollars and [...]

Why refocus? Consider this: hospitals are starting out in the red as soon as a patient is registered due to health care-acquired infection (HAI) costs. Based on the cost data from extensive research by Lynn White, M.D., hospitals are looking at a surcharge of $1,100 per patient before they even get to their room. Nearly [...]

Maintaining air and water quality OR humidity levels are also critical. Steve Ulm, director of marketing, SEMCO LLC, says keeping relative humidity levels below 60 percent decreases risk of HAI. SEMCO’s award-winning Ascendant allows facilities to achieve that goal. “The ASCENDANT can provide humidity levels of 30 percent or lower and it does so saving [...]

Many health care administrators and infection prevention wonder if UV-E light technology is an expensive gimmick or if it is a necessary device for improving outcomes and aiding in reducing health care-acquired infections (HAls). Many UV—C disinfection poducb look more like robot character from a "star Wars" movie than a piece of lifesaving medical equipment, [...]

  Despite CDC recommendations, there is no law requiring infection prevention training for any construction worker or other vendor working in a health care facility. An alarming 5 percent of all hospital stays result in readmissions due to infections that patients acquire in the health care facility. These infections, which are widely seen as preventable [...]

  When healthcare facilities' staff and contractor employees are aware of infection problems and take specific steps to prevent them, healthcare-acquired infection rates can decrease by more than 70 percent. One in 25 hospital patients contracts a potentially fatal infection during the course of their hospital care. This life-threatening epidemic demonstrates the need for improved [...]

To combat the alarming 5 percent of all hospital stays that result in readmission due to conditions acquired in health care facilities, all staff and contractors should be well educated on how to minimize the spread of fatal infections. Health care-associated infections, which are widely seen as preventable and often caused by unsatisfactory hospital conditions [...]

Everyone inside healthcare is focused on controlling costs, especially since penalties are seriously impacting CMS (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) reimbursements to hospitals. Hospitals are not faced with CMS participation payments when treating patients who develop a hospital-acquired infection (HAI). According to recent research, hospitals are already negative $1,100 for every patient as soon [...]