In many parts of the country, as rates of COVID-19 are declining and vaccination coverage is increasing (albeit with substantial variation across the US and the world), reopening has comm...
http://haicontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/06/osha-osha-osha.html
This guest post was written by Jorge Salinas, MD, Hospital Epidemiologist at the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics. The COVID-19 epidemiologic situation in the United States has impro...
http://haicontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/05/lifting-mask-requirements-in.html
This guest post was written by Jorge Salinas, MD, Hospital Epidemiologist at the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics. Her saturation had dropped to 89. Fever persisted. She was being a...
http://haicontroversies.blogspot.com/2020/12/a-momentous-week-in-our-pandemic.html
Wherein we ponder vexing issues in infection prevention and control, inside and outside the hospital.
http://haicontroversies.blogspot.com/2020/07/covid-19-transmission-medicine-grand.html
Photo by cottonbro at pexels.com In the over decade-long history of this blog, Dan's recent post, A Tiresome SPAT , has been viewed more times than any other post we've ever written. And it's...
http://haicontroversies.blogspot.com/2020/07/lets-just-get-every-face-covered.html
I’m surprised that we can’t stop arguing about the modes of SARS-CoV-2 transmission, despite the fact that most experts (including our friends at WHO) agree on the important issues. Our colle...
http://haicontroversies.blogspot.com/2020/07/a-tiresome-spat.html
This is a guest post by Jorge Salinas, MD, Hospital Epidemiologist at the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics. There is virtually no doubt that SARS-CoV2 is transmitted by droplets and co...
http://haicontroversies.blogspot.com/2020/06/covid-19-can-have-airborne-transmission.html
Over the past few months, numerous people have contacted me to ask where they can purchase a face shield. I've assembled a list of some companies below. I'm sure there are many more, which I'...
http://haicontroversies.blogspot.com/2020/06/need-face-shield.html
Photo by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash Three weeks ago, I wrote a piece on the lessons I learned from the beginning weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic in Iowa. You can see that here . If an...
http://haicontroversies.blogspot.com/2020/04/lessons-from-pandemic-part-2.html
REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha With the assistance of a great supply management team, we have been able to outfit all of our clinical staff with face shields. See here for our rationale and imp...
http://haicontroversies.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-face-shield-strategy-phase-2.html
There’s much about the COVID-19 pandemic that is unprecedented, at least in my lifetime. One aspect is very familiar, though: arguments about the primary mode(s) of transmission of a newly e...
http://haicontroversies.blogspot.com/2020/04/airborne-vs-droplet-turbulent-gas.html
Since my post last weekend, I now have found the term that, once this is all over (and it will be over someday, my friends), will send me into flashbacks and result in me sitting in the corn...
http://haicontroversies.blogspot.com/2020/04/agpitation-part-deux.html
In previous blog posts, I mentioned the implementation of face shields to prevent nosocomial COVID-19 infection. Over the past few days, I have received many questions from people across the...
http://haicontroversies.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-iowa-face-shield-strategy.html
(Apologies to Mike - we usually don't like to step on each other on the blog, but I missed he'd just published another great post! So don't miss it here !) So this week, the reality of what...
http://haicontroversies.blogspot.com/2020/03/agpitation.html
Photo by Martin Sanchez on Unsplash We are in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it's already very clear that the Infection Prevention community in the US has never faced such...
http://haicontroversies.blogspot.com/2020/03/lessons-from-pandemic.html
The physician workforce is one of the most valuable resources of any hospital, and in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak we need to do everything possible to ensure that physicians stay healthy...
http://haicontroversies.blogspot.com/2020/03/practical-strategies-for-frontline.html
I’m not really a crier. I mean, sure, there are moments in life that make me a bit misty. Turn on those first 10 minutes of the movie Up and on go the tears (curse you, Pixar!). But so...
http://haicontroversies.blogspot.com/2020/03/covid-19-deep-thoughts-and-little.html
Photo by Ashkan Forouzani on Unsplash In my 25 years as a hospital epidemiologist, this week was the hardest yet. Last Sunday, we learned of 3 COVID-19 cases in the Iowa City area. As of ...
http://haicontroversies.blogspot.com/2020/03/conserving-ppe-in-covid-19-era.html
I’m on a quick weekend trip for a wedding—a trip made possible only because we have a high concentration of hospital epidemiologists in Iowa City, and we haven’t yet diagnosed* a case of CO...
http://haicontroversies.blogspot.com/2020/03/what-scares-you.html
Billions & Billions (Eric Daigh) Each of the 34,800 pills in the picture represents 1 million doses of antibiotics, totalling 34.8 billion doses given each year around the world. A...
http://haicontroversies.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-resistance-continuesand-you-can-help.html
This is a guest post by Jorge Salinas, MD, Hospital Epidemiologist at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. The National Tuberculosis Controller Association (NTCA) and the Centers for ...
http://haicontroversies.blogspot.com/2019/05/time-to-review-your-hospital.html
The SENTRY Antimicrobial Surveillance Program was begun at the University of Iowa in 1997, moving a few years later to JMI Laboratories (also in Iowa!). Since inception, it’s been an industr...
http://haicontroversies.blogspot.com/2019/04/sentry-at-20-so-many-bugs.html
It’s been a decade since we started this infection prevention blog. So I was planning to write a reflective post on whether it was still relevant, why I'm blogging less frequently, perhaps ...
http://haicontroversies.blogspot.com/2019/03/hai-controversies-at-10-years.html
In early 2009, I bought three North Face black vests for myself and my colleagues Gonzalo Bearman and Mike Stevens at VCU Medical Center. Our Infection Control Committee had recently recommend...
http://haicontroversies.blogspot.com/2019/02/yes-we-can.html
Apologies, Faithful Readers (who do I think I am, Stan Lee (R.I.P.)?). The day-to-day life of a hospital epidemiologist, IDWeek planner, dad and spouse have pulled me away from contributions t...
http://haicontroversies.blogspot.com/2019/02/a-bloggers-return-relishing-wave-of.html