Becker's Clinical Quality & Infection Control

10 INFECTION CONTROL Chicago hospital faces $13K penalty after OSHA cites 'serious' respirator mask violations By Erica Carbajal T he Occupational Safety and Health Ad- ministration issued a $13,494 penalty to Chicago-based Community First Medical Center in December aer an inspection found violations related to respirator mask policies, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Feb. 24. OSHA cited the hospital for two "serious" violations for failing to test employees to ensure a proper fit of their respirator masks and for not implementing a written "respiratory protection program," according to the inspection document referenced by the Sun-Times. In February, the hospital said it planned to contest the violations. Some Community First Medical Center nurses, who unionized as members of National Nurses United in 2019 and were negotiating a contract with the hospital in February, said the inspection was prompted by a federal complaint they filed aer three nurses contracted COVID-19 and died, according to the Sun-Times. ey blamed a lack of adequate personal protective equipment at the hospital, which allegedly forced some workers to buy their own respirators. e hospital denied the allegation. "As with all community hospitals across the country, Community First Medical Center has felt the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic firsthand," the hospital said in a statement shared with Becker's Feb. 26. "All loss of life associated with this pandemic is met with great sorrow, particularly by those who are professionally engaged in treating the ill and injured on a daily basis. Our colleagues have become ill and some have made the ultimate sacrifice for their profession." OSHA did not cite the hospital for failing to provide appropriate or adequate PPE, according to the statement. n Scientists map the evolution of a hospital superbug By Mackenzie Bean M odern hospital care and antibiotics are not solely responsible for the antibiotic-resistant bacteria strains that exist today, according to a study published March 9 in Nature Communications. Researchers from Britain and Norway analyzed 2,027 samples of Enterococ- cus faecalis — a common bacteria often found in the human intestinal tract — dating to 1936. The team used genetic sequencing to map the evolutionary journey of E. faecalis and track when different strains developed. They found resistant strains emerged earlier than previously thought and before the widespread use of antibiotics, suggesting antibiotics alone did not cause the bacteria to evolve. Agricultural and early medical practices, such as the use of arsenic and mer- cury, also influenced the evolution of some antibiotic-resistant strains that exist today, the researchers found. "Currently, when patients are admitted to [the] hospital, they are swabbed for some antibiotic resistant bacteria and fungi and are isolated to ensure that in- fection rates are kept as low as possible," co-lead author Anna Pöntinen, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at University of Oslo in Norway, said in a news release. "Thanks to this study, it is possible to scrutinize the diversity of E. faecalis and identify those that are more prone to spread within hospitals and thus could cause harm in immunocompromised people. We believe that it could be ben- eficial to also screen for E. faecalis on admission to hospitals." n Hackensack Meridian coronavirus test screens for several variants, gives results in under 3 hours By Mackenzie Bean S cientists at Hackensack Meridian Health developed a test that can detect multiple coronavirus variants within two-and-a-half hours, the Edison, N.J.-based system said April 1. The test is designed for use in healthcare organizations across New Jer- sey and will help physicians identify the best treatment option for patients based on which variant they have, according to the health system. The test can identify the B.1.1.7 variant initially found in the U.K., the P.1 variant first identified in Brazil and the B.1.351 variant that originated in South Africa, along with other variants that carry the E484K mutation. Researchers at Hackensack Meridian's Center for Discovery and Innova- tion used the test to examine 435 nasal swabs collected at eight care sites across the health system between last December and February and found a "dramatic increase in the frequency" of samples containing the E484K mu- tation, according to research published March 26 in the medical preprint server medRXiv. In other countries, variants with the E484K mutation have been linked to reinfection and appear to resist some antibody therapies, researchers said. But vaccines are still broadly effective against variants with this mutation, they added. n

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