May 21, 2013
The senior citizen population is on the rise in the Southwest. Unfortunately, so is a frightening illness: valley fever.
April 16, 2013
I was sympathetic when the Partnership for Sustainable Health Care called for a speedier shift away from fee-for-service last week — and I also thought about Purell. Yes, that Purell.
Caregivers involved in the annual battle against influenza outbreaks will get an advance peek in a webinar Tuesday at what vaccine options for the 2013-14 flu season will be. Officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases will preview the possibilities. The webcast will begin at 3 p.m. Eastern Time. The presentation will include a review of vaccine effectiveness for the 2012-13 campaign.
Elderly white women still make up the majority of the oldest nursing home residents, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, although other researchers have found the number of white residents is on the decline.
Providers must act to prevent the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria killing about half of all people who become infected, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention said in March.
March 06, 2013
A lethal type of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is on the rise in acute and long-term care facilities, and providers must act to prevent the spread of these germs that kill about half of all people who become infected, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention announced Tuesday.
January 28, 2013
What matters most to long-term care operators? Certainly, remaining in business is a top priority. But providers are not just fixated on the bottom line. Here are some telltale signs.
January 22, 2013
The 2012-13 flu season has been especially bad for the elderly, officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday in a call with reporters. Despite this, CDC figures show about half of nursing home workers have not been vaccinated.
January 10, 2013
Some people might dream of owning a professional football or baseball team. Right now, I'm wishing I owned a nursing home. Then I could immediately fire all the people who deserved it.
January 09, 2013
Once a pest expected only to be encountered on rare occasion, bed bugs are more prevalent than you'd think in healthcare facilities — especially in long-term care and assisted living facilities. In fact, more than a quarter of respondents to an Association for the Healthcare Environment survey earlier this year indicated they had experienced a problem with bed bugs in their facility.
January 02, 2013
The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention is warning providers to brace for a challenging flu season. Medline's recently-introduced BioMask is one way providers can target the flu bug.
Significant increases in flu activity in the United States have occurred in the last two weeks. With the exception of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, this is the earliest that the nation has hit the influenza-like-illness baseline in nearly a decade.
December 11, 2012
I have two major deal-breakers for friends: If you have purchased a pet from a breeder, or if you are anti-vaccination, especially for your child, I am going to seriously re-evaluate the friendship.
Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas have already reported high levels of flu activity, officials said.
More adults are struggling with basic activities of daily living (ADLs), according to research from the Centers from Disease Control & Prevention.
Government health officials have released a tracking tool that can help nursing facilities monitor healthcare-acquired infections. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Healthcare Safety Network's new tracking component lets users log onto a website.
September 24, 2012
Did you hear the one about the seasoned detective who finds a body in a field? Surrounded by young detectives, he immediately announces, "She was a nurse and worked in long term care!" Stunned, the newbie detectives ask, "How on earth can you tell that?" "Easy," he says.
July 30, 2012
Basic infection prevention and control isn't rocket science. It is essentially following some general guidelines. Some of them pretty simplistic. Not too hard right? You would think, but ...
Elderly adults who have had a single episode of shingles have a relatively low short-term risk for coming down with the painful skin condition again, regardless of vaccination status, new research suggests.
The overall incidence of influenza is on the rise in the United States — particularly in the Midwest — though it is still relatively low, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
While infection control strategies have helped reduce healthcare facility-acquired infections in recent years, Clostridium difficile infections have reached unacceptably high rates, a new report finds.
January 26, 2012
In a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services, the Assisted Living Federation of America said it was "dismayed to see the lack of acknowledgment of the role assisted living has in caring for individuals with Alzheimer's disease," in the HHS taskforce plan released Jan. 9.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended a new 12-week-long treatment for latent tuberculosis, which is easier to carry out and as effective as existing treatments.
The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention has urged long-term care providers to investigate all cases of streptococcus following a large and long outbreak at a Pennsylvania nursing home.
Long-term care professionals had an influenza vaccine compliance rate of 64.4% during last year's flu season, compared with a 71.1% compliance rate among hospital workers, new data shows.
In response to increasing reports of norovirus gastroenteritis infections and outbreaks in healthcare settings, including nursing homes, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued guidelines for controlling and preventing outbreaks.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health recently announced a public health action plan targeted at antimicrobial resistance.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued its report, "CDC Health Disparities and Inequalities in the United States - 2011." It is the first in a series of reports discussing disparities in healthcare along socio-economic lines.
The numbers of nursing home residents under the age of 65 has grown 22% in the last eight years. This is largely due to the closing of mental health facilities and medical advances that help individuals survive traumatic illnesses and injuries, The Washington Post reported.
November 05, 2010
The Health and Human Service's Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality said it will be giving $34 million to projects working to prevent healthcare-associated infections in long-term care facilities, hospitals, ambulatory care settings and end-stage renal disease facilities.
