Becker's Clinical Quality & Infection Control

11 INFECTION CONTROL & PATIENT SAFETY Michigan nurse donates kidney to her patient By Mackenzie Bean I ris Zink, MSN, RN, went above and beyond the call of duty to keep patients healthy by donating a kidney to one of her longtime pa- tients at Lansing (Mich.) Rheumatology, reported Fox 47 News. The rheumatology-certified nurse practitioner has treated the patient, Ginny Holcomb, for more than 15 years. When Ms. Holcomb was diagnosed with kidney cancer, Ms. Zink said she didn't think twice about donating a kidney. "There was just no hesitation. I didn't want to see her die. I couldn't watch it," Ms. Zink told Fox 47 News. The women learned they were a perfect match after about a year of tests and underwent the transplant in July. Ms. Zink has fully recov- ered from the surgery, and Ms. Holcomb's condition is improving. "We're bonded for life; she's got part of me in her," Ms. Zink told Fox 47 News. Ms. Holcomb responded, "It's a beautiful thing to have someone else's body part in you." The women said they hope their story inspires other people to con- sider organ donation. n Big cities need more epidemiologists, health officials say By Mackenzie Bean M any major cities in the U.S. staff fewer ep- idemiologists than recommended by state staffing ratios, according to a survey from the Big Cities Health Coalition and the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists. BCHC comprises leaders from the country's largest metropolitan health departments who share strate- gies to promote the health and safety of more than 55 million people, or 17 percent of the U.S. population. e survey includes responses from 27 of the group's 30 participating health department leaders recorded from October to December 2017. Here are four survey findings to know: 1. About 18 percent of health departments do not have a dedicated leader to oversee epidemiology activities. A majority (78 percent) employ generalist epidemiologists who support a few or all public health program areas. 2. Participating health departments all had an infec- tious disease and emergency preparedness program. However, only 33 percent had a mental health program and 19 percent had an occupational health program. Lead epidemiologists were most likely to oversee infectious disease programs (85 percent), followed by maternal and child health programs (74 percent) and vital statistics programs (67 percent). 3. e 27 participating health departments employ a total of 1,091 full-time epidemiologists. Overall, the departments would need to increase epidemiology staff by 40 percent to reach full capacity. 4. When asked to rate their department's capacity to conduct essential public health services related to epidemiology, leaders said they were most capable of monitoring health status (93 percent) and iden- tifying and investigating community health hazards (78 percent). However, only 33 percent of leaders said their departments were capable of researching innovative solutions to health problems, and 41 percent said their departments could thoroughly evaluate population-based health services. "Some cities are woefully under-resourced," the authors wrote. "Even in well-staffed departments, there is a perceived need for a significant increase in capacity." n How a Novant Health hospital reduced infections by 70% By Megan Knowles S alisbury, N.C.-based Novant Health Rowan Medical Center celebrated a 70 percent decrease in hospital-acquired infections since 2016, and as of Oct. 27, the hospital had no infections for the month, according to the Salisbury Post. Hospital staff worked to decrease the number of infections in several ways, including hand-washing campaigns that focused on what would be easiest for physicians, said Dari Caldwell, PhD, RN, presi- dent of Novant Health Rowan Medical Center. "We really listen to our team members," Dr. Caldwell said. "When we went with a real focus around hand washing and we would talk to our team members about it, they would show us it would be a lot easier to wash our hands if we had a hand-washing dispenser here where we didn't have one. We really listened to our front-line team around where they needed the hand-washing devices." Other infection control methods included receiving an ultraviolet disin- fection system, switching cleaners and reducing urinary catheter use. Hospital staff also began investigating why patients had infections. "We started monitoring any time we did have an infection," Dr. Cald- well said. "We would do a root-cause analysis to see what happened, how did this happen, how could it have been avoided and so forth." Dr. Caldwell said she wants patients to know the care team is knowl- edgeable about how to keep them from getting infections. n

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