Developing a broader approach to management of infection control breaches in health care settings.
Our experiences with health departments and health care facilities suggest that questions surrounding instrument reprocessing errors and other infection control breaches are becoming increasingly common. We describe an approach to management of these incidents that focuses on risk of bloodborne pathogen transmission and the role of public health and other stakeholders to inform patient notification and testing decisions.
Patel
Priti R
PR
Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA 30333, USA. ppatel@cdc.gov
Srinivasan
Arjun
A
Perz
Joseph F
JF
D017848:Blood-Borne Pathogens; D003428:Cross Infection / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000635:transmission; D004866:Equipment Contamination; D006268:Health Facilities; D006801:Humans; D017053:Infection Control / Q000458:organization & administration*; D016357:Infection Control Practitioners; D017758:Infectious Disease Transmission, Patient-to-Professional / Q000517:prevention & control; D017757:Infectious Disease Transmission, Professional-to-Patient / Q000517:prevention & control; D011634:Public Health; D018570:Risk Assessment