SHEA Outbreak Response Podcast with Dr. Mike Stevens and Me

Last week I had the honor and pleasure to record a podcast (15 minutes) for the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA). The topic was infection prevention, current challenges and future threats.

The interview was hosted by Dr. Mike Stevens, of Virginia Commonwealth University.

The file is accessible here.

For more on the SHEA/CDC Outbreak Response Training Program (ORTP) click here.

Asymptomatic Bacteriuria, Catheterized patients and Urine Test Stewardship: What Happens Next?

The (over)treatment of asymptomatic bacteriuria in hospitalized patients remains pesky as reported in this JAMA Internal Medicine article.  The impact: treating asymptomatic bacteriuria increases length of stay.  No specific example are given in the discussion on how best to  reduce overtreatment, which stems from overdiagnosis.

Here is a recent publication from our group on urine test stewardship in catheterized patients. We surveyed providers and found poor understanding of urine culture guidelines for catheterized ICU patients. 

Education only goes so far. An EMR-based decision support intervention may potentially  improve urine culture guideline adherence and reduce unnecessary testing and antibiotic use. This is precisely what we have created and set into motion. We are in the process of summarizing our data and preparing a manuscript. The result is a mixed bag and the issue continues to vex us.

I am off to the United Kingdom tomorrow, for the 2019 Infection Prevention Society annual conference, where I have a lecture and a symposium. Looking forward to it. 

Updates will be posted on my blog.

Sunday Papers! Video of Our Joe Jackson Cover By Simone Lawson

This one is way off topic, but, this is my blog where I can express my opinions and passions, such as football (soccer), books and music.

Thank you Simone Lawson, 11 year old daughter of bassist, Greg Lawson for coming to our rehearsal and making this short video.

Simone is more creative than we are!

4th Annual VCU Infection Prevention Conference

Today we hosted the 4th Annual VCU Infection Prevention Conference. 

Guest speakers included Drs. Mark Rupp (University of Nebraska Medical Center), Amy Mathers (University of Virginina) and Priya Nori (Albert Einstein College of Medicine).

Topics include the perils and pitfalls of expecting zero central line associated bloodstream infections, pursuing a carbapenemase gene from patients to plumbing and antimicrobial stewardship.

I wrapped up the event with my presentation of the Learning Hospital: An Infection Prevention Model.

Thank you to the guest speakers for their high quality presentations. Also, thank you to VCU Health for their financial and logistical support.

As always, I get much more out of these events than I contribute.

I am already looking forward to the 2020 conference.

Dr. Mark Rupp

Dr. Amy Mathers

Dr. Priya Nori

Panel Discussion

The Message of Measles in The New Yorker Magazine

There is no scarcity  of information on the internet regarding measles, the current outbreak and the anti-vaccine movement.

However, if you seek a high quality publication on the public health impact of both the anti-vaccine movement and the recent measles outbreak in the United States then I refer you to this article recently published in the The New Yorker magazine.

We are witnessing a larger  public war against science based reality, suspicion of authority and rejection of expertise, one in which the consequences of misinformation are nearly as bad as the potential complications of measles.

Discouraging.

Medical Literary Messenger Fall 2019 Published! Access it Here

The Fall 2019 edition of the Medical Literary Messenger has published.
Thank you to all the contributors and to the Associate Editors.  Another successful edition published.

Access our literary journal website here. Download the PDF here.

Richard Preston's The Hot Zone: Then and Now as a National Geographic Series

I eagerly read Richard Preston's The Hot Zone in 1994, as a very enthusiastic medical student. It was my introduction to the threat of infectious diseases by way of the Reston, Virginia Ebola epizootic.

The cinematic version is now available for streaming, a six episode mini-series by National Geographic. 

More information is available here.