2009 ARTICLES
Below are links to recent TheraDoc® product, service, and corporate highlights from trade and consumer media.Computerized Infection Control Surveillance: Insights from the H1N1 influenza pandemic
Managing Infection Control – 9.1.09
The ongoing H1N1 influenza pandemic has provided a vivid reminder that hospitals are on the front lines of infectious disease monitoring, identification, and reporting in their communities. And, within hospitals, infection prevention professionals are key players both in managing and coordinating the responses of their institutions to ongoing infectious disease challenges and in preparing for future outbreaks.
Though the current influenza outbreak in the United States so far has been less serious than originally feared, a recent report found that even the relatively mild outbreak overwhelmed the U.S. healthcare system. The June 2009 report from the Trust for America?s Health, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and University of Pittsburgh's Center for Biosecurity found that communication between government agencies and healthcare providers was not well coordinated,
Full Article
Anticoagulation Made Easier Via Tracking Software
Pharmacy Practice News – 8.1.09
Anticoagulation therapy is risky business. Just how risky became common knowledge in November 2007, amidst widespread media reports that the newborn twins of actor Dennis Quaid had accidentally been given 1,000-fold overdoses of heparin at a Los Angeles hospital. (They survived.) But blood clots, uncontrolled bleeding and other potentially lethal problems associated with blood thinners may become largely things of the past if computerized patient-safety surveillance tools live up to their early promise. Full Article
Automated Surveillance: Can it Replace "Shoe-Leather" Epidemiology?
Infection Control Today – 7.24.09
A recent survey of infection preventionists (IPs) by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) confirmed that while demands on the profession are escalating, 41 percent of respondents to the ?2009 APIC Economic Survey? reported reductions in budgets for infection prevention in the last 18 months due primarily to the economic downturn. With resources failing to keep pace with these demands, many IPs are strapped for the funding and staff necessary to ensure that their efforts to monitor and report healthcare-acquired infections (HAIs) are optimized. Full Article
Technology aids medical detectives in tracking HAIs
Healthcare Purchasing News – 3.1.09
Epidemiologists are the Sherlock Holmes of medicine. As medical detectives, epidemiologists? mission is to track down causes of morbidity and mortality. In a healthcare facility, the killer may be infection; so, the epidemiologists search for the source of the outbreak. They investigate the whos, the wheres, the whats, the whens, and the whys of infection, looking for patterns. Only when those answers are revealed can an epidemic begin to be controlled. Full Article
