News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – A national medical organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have released a pair of new tools designed to set a national standard for the tracking of healthcare-associated infections (HAI) in long-term care settings.

(CIDRAP News) – A survey of school nurses in 26 states about pandemic influenza preparedness in schools found some worrisome gaps, despite a federal requirement that the facilities must prepare for all types of disasters, including infectious diseases.

(CIDRAP News) – Against a backdrop of state, national, and international efforts to raise awareness about appropriate antibiotic use, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) launched a new tracking system to monitor use of the drugs in hospitals.

(CIDRAP News) – The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) has formally asked federal health officials to recommend making influenza vaccination mandatory for healthcare workers (HCWs), saying this is probably the best way to protect patients from contracting flu in healthcare facilities.

(CIDRAP News) – If public health emergency preparedness were a college class, the federal government would be considered a poor pupil by the nonprofit organization Trust For America's Health (TFAH), which gives the government a D+ in a new report released yesterday.

That grade was based on a survey of 20 leading public health experts, who used 12 criteria to measure preparedness.