Becker's Clinical Quality & Infection Control

10 INFECTION CONTROL & PATIENT SAFETY University Hospitals Nurse Fired for Calling in Sick With Flu: 4 Things to Know By Mackenzie Bean T heresa Puckett, RN, a temporary nurse at Cleveland-based University Hospi- tals, was fired for taking two sick days aer catching the flu, reported WSMV. Here are four things to know. 1. Ms. Puckett took one sick day at the end of 2017. She returned to work soon aer, but a superior sent her home as she was still symp- tomatic. "I was putting in my cough drops, I was drinking my water," Ms. Puckett told WSMV. "I mean the whole nine yards just to patch myself up enough to go to work." 2. While Ms. Puckett had a physician's note recommending she should not interact with patients, UH fired her per the hospital's atten- dance policy, which says temporary nurses may be let go aer two unapproved absences in 60 days. "When it happened to me, and I really truly was too sick to go to work, I was punished for that," Ms. Puckett told WSMV. "I was pun- ished for staying home with a doctor's note." 3. e hospital told WSMV "notes from a physician do not 'excuse' an occurrence of absence" and said the attendance policy falls in line with those at many other health systems nationwide. 4. UH also said it asks employees to stay home when they are sick to protect the health of patients and hospital workers. "We realize that our healthcare profession- als who care for our patients occasionally need time off to care for themselves," a UH spokesman told Becker's Hospital Review. "UH has a reasonable and competitive attendance policy. For full-time and part- time employees, counseling begins aer six unscheduled absences within 12 months, and nine absences may result in termination. PRN, or as-needed, employees work fewer shis than regularly scheduled employees and may be removed from on-roll status af- ter two occurrences of unscheduled absences within a 60-day period." n DMC Children's Hospital Brings Sterile Processing In-House By Mackenzie Bean D etroit Medical Center's Children's Hospital of Michigan is construct- ing a 250,000-square-foot critical care tower, which will house its own sterile processing department, according to DMC Children's CEO Luanne Thomas Ewald. Ms. Thomas Ewald said the expansion project presented a unique op- portunity to pull sterile processing in-house. "We really wanted to take advantage of the fact that our operating rooms and pre-ops are under construction," she told Becker's Hospital Review in an interview. The children's hospital already transferred sterile processing operations from the health system's central sterile processing department at DMC Detroit Receiving Hospital to a mobile unit attached to DMC Children's in November. Once the $155 million patient tower is completed this sum- mer, DMC Children's will shift sterilization processes to the new unit, which will be located right outside the tower's 14 ORs. "We are developing the sterile processing unit using lean facility design, so we wanted the surgical instruments to be part of the entire operating room process," said Ms. Thomas Ewald. "When a surgery gets scheduled, the instruments will also get scheduled." DMC Children's will manage the unit internally, with the hospital's OR director serving as air traffic controller for all aspects of the OR, including central sterile processing. A dedicated sterile processing staff will work ex- clusively with the hospital's pediatric surgical instruments, which are much smaller and often more complicated to clean than adult instruments. "We really have a dedicated team of people who understand what is sup- posed to go into certain sets and why," said Ms. Thomas Ewald. "It's really that specialization that will benefit us most." n Hospital Toilet Flushing During Patient Care Can Lead to Spread of Pathogens By Anuja Vaidya A study published in Antimicrobial Resistance & Infection Control quantified the particles and bioaerosols produced from flushing a hospital toilet during routine patient care. Researchers measured particle and bioaerosol concentrations in hospital bathrooms across three sampling conditions — no waste no flush, no waste with flush and fecal waste with flush. They measured the concentrations with a particle counter bioaerosol sampler both before and after a toilet flushing event at distances of 0.15 meter, 0.5 meter and 1 meter from the toilet. The study showed particle concentrations measured before and after the flush were significantly different. In particular, bioaerosol concentrations when flushing fecal waste were found to be significantly greater than back- ground concentrations. The particles aerosolized include microorganisms remaining from previous use or from fecal wastes. The study suggests aerosols generated may remain for longer than 30 minutes post toilet flush. It also suggests toilet flushing is a source of bio- aerosols that may result in transmission of pathogenic microorganisms. n

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