Symposium on Healthcare Associated Infections

University of Texas Southwestern Medical School held a symposium on Healthcare Associated Infection Saturday, November 3. The program provided insight and best practices related to specific infections including: gram positive bacteria such as Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus; gram negative bacteria such as Klebsiella and Acinetobacter; spores such as Clostridium difficile; Tuberculosis and others. Many of these are multidrug resistant bacteria requiring different antibiotics at a time when development of new antibiotics is dwindling. While there are differences in treatment, there was a common theme that ran through the program: prevention. The common means of preventing the spread of infections included appropriate hand hygiene by staff, physician, patient and visitors; appropriate environmental cleaning of surfaces; appropriate isolation depending on the contact, droplet or respiratory vector of spread; and finally surveillance of not only patients for different infections, but adherence to prevention programs.