Becker's Clinical Quality & Infection Control

13 INFECTION CONTROL & PATIENT SAFETY Nurses raise patient safety concerns at U of Chicago Medical Center By Mackenzie Bean N urses at University of Chicago Medical Center claim the hospital is violating several laws linked to staffing and overtime, which poses a threat to patient safety. e National Nurses United Organizing Committee/National Nurses United rep- resents the hospital's nurses, who are filing complaints with the Illinois Department of Public Health and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. e nurses allege UCMC is forcing them to work mandatory overtime hours — some- times up to six extra hours aer a shi — which the clinicians say is illegal under Illinois law and contributes to patient care issues. However, UCMC told Becker's it does not have mandatory overtime for nurses and has "a grievance process for any issues with overtime" as part of a previous collective bar- gaining agreement with the union. Nurses are claiming the hospital fails to follow an Illinois law requiring facilities to post a staffing plan in each unit that aligns with patient care needs. ey also contend that UCMC is improperly recording workplace injuries, which prevents the facility from iden- tifying injury trends and possible solutions. "UCMC takes issues of nurse staffing and workplace safety very seriously and is con- sistently adapting and finding solutions that best serve our nurses and patients," the hos- pital said in a written statement to Becker's. "We are very proud that leading independent watchdog groups like Leapfrog have consis- tently given us an A grade in hospital safety. … is is in large part due to the exceptional work of our nurses." UCMC said it has been in negotiations with National Nurses United to create a new labor contract for nurses. n Viewpoint: Hospitals must lift veil of secrecy around superbug outbreaks By Mackenzie Bean H ospitals must work to eliminate the "climate of secrecy" that surrounds superbug outbreaks without creating misplaced fear in patients, Matt McCarthy, MD, an infectious disease physician Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City, wrote in an op-ed for The New York Times. At present, the CDC is prohibited from publicly disclosing hospitals undergoing outbreaks of drug-re- sistant infections due to an agreement with states. To increase transparency into superbug outbreaks, some patient advocates are calling on hospitals to share a list of every superbug found within their facilities. Dr. McCarthy said such a practice would cause many pa- tients to avoid medical care due to fears of acquiring an infection, among other consequences. Instead, he said "hospitals should train spokesmen to address these issues and states should revisit their reluctance to disclose information." Hospital leaders should also speak openly about how they are address- ing superbug outbreaks to keep patients safe. "Hospital administrators and government officials do need to be honest about the microbes in our medical centers and explain what is really going on," Dr. McCa- rthy wrote. "No comment will no longer suffice. People have questions and this story is not going away." n Patient dies from fecal transplant, FDA warns By Alia Paavola T he FDA alerted healthcare providers June 13 that at least one patient has died after receiving a fecal trans- plant containing drug-resistant bacteria. One other person was also sick from the transplant, accord- ing to the agency. Both patients received stool from the same donor and had weak immune systems. The FDA noted that the donor stool had not been tested for a type of drug-resistant bacteria called extended-spectrum beta-lactamase-producing E. coli prior to the transplant. After the illness and death occurred, a stored preparation of the donor stool was tested and found to be positive for the bacteria. The strain found was identical to the one found in the two patients. The FDA didn't disclose where the stool came from or the organization that provided the transplant. Additionally, it didn't explain why the patients received the fecal transplant. However, fecal transplants are commonly used to treat bac- terial infections like Clostridium difficile. "Patients considering [fecal transplants] to treat C. difficile infection should speak to their healthcare provider to under- stand the potential risks associated with the product's use," the FDA said. n

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