Allowing bedside nurses to independently order Clostridioides difficile testing could help hospitals lower the risk of patient infections and associated deaths, according to a study published May 11 in the American Journal of Infection Control.

New guidance on surgical site infections calls for physicians to cease antibiotic prophylaxis immediately after surgeries, according to research published May 4 in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology. It is the first major revision to the guidelines since 2014.

Health officials have yet to identify the source of a Klebsiella pneumoniae outbreak tied to 31 illnesses and seven patient deaths at Seattle-based Virginia Mason Medical Center, NPR affiliate KUOW reported May 5.

Data released as part of The Leapfrog Group's annual hospital rankings — which analyzed data from late 2021 and into 2022 — revealed a significant rise in healthcare-associated infections — a trend that was in decline prior to the pandemic.

Needless to say, the onset of COVID-19 came without a clear road map for the medical profession to follow while navigating it. It's in light of this that the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology launched a series of playbooks designed to help guide healthcare facilities through infectious disease threats.

The pivot from pandemic-era mandatory masking in healthcare settings to optional masking — even for healthcare staff in most cases — has become a difficult situation for vulnerable, high-risk and immunocompromised patients to navigate. 

The Veterans Affairs North Texas Health Care System in Dallas prevented healthcare-associated infection rates from rising during the pandemic — and reduced burnout among infection prevention and control team members — through a 14-month initiative, according to a study published April 26 in the American Journal of Infection Control.

Over the last six months, 31 patients at Seattle-based Virginia Mason Medical Center have been infected with Klebsiella pneumoniae and four have since died, NPR affiliate KUOW reported April 25.

UChicago Medicine Ingalls Memorial Hospital in Harvey, Ill., hasn't seen a central-line-associated blood infection since December 2021 — an accomplishment that took coordinated planning and multidisciplinary collaboration. 

Staff and visitors will be required to mask up at Santa Rosa (Calif.) Medical Center amid a COVID-19 outbreak that has infected more than a dozen hospital workers and patients, The San Francisco Chronicle reported April 20. 

Hygiene practices have come a long way since the CDC first published national hygiene guidelines in the 1980s. With so much to keep track of, a nurse leader summarized some of the latest practice recommendations and strategies to increase hand hygiene compliance in an April 18 blog post for the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses. 

Wearing masks at grocery stores, on airplanes, subways and buses was the norm during the height of the pandemic. Now, most mask mandates only remain at hospitals and in healthcare settings, but experts say it is time to walk back those policies.

Like many things in life, diseases and pathogens are not linear. What was once under control may resurface or spike due to evolving global conditions — which is something experts from the CDC and American Medical Association are continuously preparing to manage.

About 50 percent of healthcare workers with symptomatic COVID-19 in a new study showed up for work, indicating concern over high workload burden for coworkers and personal responsibility.

Las Vegas-based Veterans Affairs Southern Nevada Healthcare System has stopped testing asymptomatic patients for COVID-19 before surgical procedures, it announced April 10.

From 2019 to 2021, 17 states reported their first case of Candida auris, a yeast fungal infection becoming more resistant to treatment. Three Massachusetts General Hospital experts told Becker's the three ways to contain the spread.

The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed two new standards to reduce ethylene oxide emissions and protect workers exposed to the gas during sterilization processes. 

From drug resistance to the growing threat of Candida auris, today's infection preventionists face a growing to-do list with limited resources. 

In a large hospital in London, removing mask rules for visitors and staff did not result in a "statistically significant change" in the rate of COVID-19 infections, a study published April 6 found, adding more questions to the swirling debate of mask efficacy against the coronavirus. 

Observing military tank training prompted John Moses, PhD, a professor and researcher at Cold Spring Harbor (N.Y.) Laboratory, to develop "shape-shifting" antibiotics in an effort to fight rising instances of drug resistance.