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Home Health & Hospice Week

Industry Notes:

CDC Issues New Guidelines For Preventing Catheter-Related Bloodstream Infections

Published on Tue Mar 08, 2011

Get up to speed on new guidelines to eliminate catheter-related bloodstream infections (CRBSI), released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC). Such infections are "one of the most deadly and costly threats to patient safety," the National Institutes of Health says in a release. The guidelines, which emphasize educating and training health care personnel, using maximal sterile barrier precautions during catheter insertion, cleaning skin with chlorhexidine (an antibacterial scrub), and avoiding routine replacement of certain catheters, apply to home care as well as institutional and outpatient settings, they note. "Implementation of these critical infection control guidelines is an important benchmark of health care quality and patient safety," physician and lead author Naomi O'Grady with the NIH says in the release. A link to the guidelines is at www.cdc.gov/hicpac in the "What's New" box.
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