Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a group of gram-positive bacteria that are genetically distinct from other strains of Staphylococcus aureus. MRSA is responsible for several difficult-to-treat infections in humans. It caused more than 100,000 deaths attributable to antimicrobial resistance in 2019.
Sir Austin Bradford Hill was an English epidemiologist and statistician, pioneered the randomised clinical trial and, together with Richard Doll, demonstrated the connection between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. Hill is widely known for pioneering the "Bradford Hill" criteria for determining a causal association.
In urology, a Foley catheter is a flexible tube that a clinician passes through the urethra and into the bladder to drain urine. It is the most common type of indwelling urinary catheter.
Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus, or vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE), are bacterial strains of the genus Enterococcus that are resistant to the antibiotic vancomycin.
Infection prevention and control is the discipline concerned with preventing healthcare-associated infections; a practical rather than academic sub-discipline of epidemiology. In Northern Europe, infection prevention and control is expanded from healthcare into a component in public health, known as "infection protection". It is an essential part of the infrastructure of health care. Infection control and hospital epidemiology are akin to public health practice, practiced within the confines of a particular health-care delivery system rather than directed at society as a whole.
Alternative treatments used for the common cold include numerous home remedies and alternative medicines. Scientific research regarding the efficacy of each treatment is generally nonexistent or inconclusive. Current best evidence indicates prevention, including hand washing and neatness, and management of symptoms.
Clinical epidemiology is a subfield of epidemiology specifically focused on issues relevant to clinical medicine. The term was first introduced by Jean Paul in his presidential address to the American Society for Clinical Investigation in 1938. It is sometimes referred to as "the basic science of clinical medicine".
A disposable towel is a single-use alternative to a reusable cloth towel. Disposable materials were originally designed for healthcare delivery and have been introduced to industries outside of healthcare systems, such as resorts, hotels, hospitality, exercise facilities and households.
Didier Pittet is an infectious diseases expert and the director of the Infection Control Programme and WHO Collaborating Centre on Patient Safety, University Hospital of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland. Since 2005, Pittet is also the External Lead of the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Patient Safety Challenge "Clean Care is Safer Care" and African Partnerships for Patient Safety.
The use of epidemiological tools in health care management can be described as managerial epidemiology. Several formal definitions have been proposed for managerial epidemiology. These include:
The Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) is a private nonprofit professional organization based in Arlington, VA for healthcare practitioners dedicated to the principles of infection control. APIC has more than 15,000 members. APIC concentrates its efforts in the hospital, nursing home and home health settings.
Antimicrobial stewardship is the systematic effort to educate and persuade prescribers of antimicrobials to follow evidence-based prescribing, in order to stem antimicrobial overuse, and thus antimicrobial resistance. AMS has been an organized effort of specialists in infectious diseases, both in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics with their respective peer-organizations, hospital pharmacists, the public health community and their professional organizations since the late 1990s. It has first been implemented in hospitals. In the U.S., within the context of physicians' prescribing freedom, AMS had largely been voluntary self-regulation in the form of policies and appeals to adhere to a prescribing self-discipline until 2017, when the Joint Commission prescribed that hospitals should have an Antimicrobial Stewardship team, which was expanded to the outpatient setting in 2020.
The International Society for Infectious Diseases (ISID), established in 1986, is a nonprofit organization that monitors infectious diseases on a global scale. It also offers grants and fellowships, publishes a journal, and runs online learning platforms for sharing information on managing infectious diseases. It is based in Brookline, Massachusetts, US. The organization solicits donations from the general public, as well as governments, foundations, and the pharmaceutical industry.
The Journal of Hospital Infection is a peer-reviewed medical journal published by Elsevier on behalf of the Healthcare Infection Society. The journal publishes articles describing original research on epidemiology, healthcare, and antimicrobial resistance.
An infection rate is the probability or risk of an infection in a population. It is used to measure the frequency of occurrence of new instances of infection within a population during a specific time period.
Susan S Huang is affiliated with the University of California Irvine School of Medicine. She specializes in infection prevention.
Azra Catherine Hilary Ghani is a British epidemiologist who is a professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at Imperial College London. Her research considers the mathematical modelling of infectious diseases, including malaria, bovine spongiform encephalopathy and coronavirus. She has worked with the World Health Organization on their technical strategy for malaria. She is associate director of the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis.
Jasmine R. Marcelin is a Caribbean-American infectious disease physician and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC). Marcelin is also the Associate Medical Director of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program and as well as the Co-Director of Digital Innovation and Social Media Strategy at UNMC. Marcelin is dedicated to advancing diversity, inclusion, and equity in her communities and is a founding member of the Infectious Diseases Society of America Inclusion, Diversity, Access & Equity Taskforce. Marcelin uses social media to advance medicine, diversity, and patient advocacy and has published articles on how to effectively use social media for these purposes.
Elaine Lucille Larson is an American infectious disease specialist. As a Professor of Epidemiology at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, she has published four books and more than four hundred articles on the subjects of infection prevention and control, disease epidemiology, and related issues. In 2017, Larson was named a "Living Legend" by the American Academy of Nursing, the Academy's highest honor.
Karen Colleen Carroll is an American infectious disease pathologist and medical microbiologist specialized in the evaluation of diagnostic platforms and the epidemiology of healthcare-associated infections. She is a professor of pathology and director of the division of medical microbiology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
