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Making a C-DIFFerence: Implementation of a prevention collaborative to reduce hospital-onset Clostridioides difficile infection rates
- Katelyn A. White, Laura E.A. Barnes, Rachel L. Snyder, Lucy V. Fike, David T. Kuhar, Ronda L. Cochran
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- Journal:
- Antimicrobial Stewardship & Healthcare Epidemiology / Volume 2 / Issue 1 / 2022
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 26 May 2022, e87
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Objective:
To assist hospitals in reducing Clostridioides difficile infections (CDI), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) implemented a collaborative using the CDC CDI prevention strategies and the Targeted Assessment for Prevention (TAP) Strategy as foundational frameworks.
Setting:Acute-care hospitals.
Methods:We invited 400 hospitals with the highest cumulative attributable differences (CADs) to the 12-month collaborative, with monthly webinars, coaching calls, and deployment of the CDC CDI TAP facility assessments. Infection prevention barriers, gaps identified, and interventions implemented were qualitatively coded by categorizing them to respective CDI prevention strategies. Standardized infection ratios (SIRs) were reviewed to measure outcomes.
Results:Overall, 76 hospitals participated, most often reporting CDI testing as their greatest barrier to achieving reduction (61%). In total, 5,673 TAP assessments were collected across 46 (61%) hospitals. Most hospitals (98%) identified at least 1 gap related to testing and at least 1 gap related to infrastructure to support prevention. Among 14 follow-up hospitals, 64% implemented interventions related to infrastructure to support prevention (eg, establishing champions, reviewing individual CDIs) and 86% implemented testing interventions (eg, 2-step testing, testing algorithms). The SIR decrease between the pre-collaborative and post-collaborative periods was significant among participants (16.7%; P < .001) but less than that among nonparticipants (25.1%; P < .001).
Conclusions:This article describes gaps identified and interventions implemented during a comprehensive CDI prevention collaborative in targeted hospitals, highlighting potential future areas of focus for CDI prevention efforts as well as reported challenges and barriers to prevention of one of the most common healthcare-associated infections affecting hospitals and patients nationwide.
Contributors
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- By Jean Marie Abraham, Catherine Ayoub, Jessica Dym Bartlett, Karen L. Bierman, Paula A. Braveman, Robert H. Bruininks, Frances A. Campbell, Rachel Chazan-Cohen, Peggy Chen, Alyssa Crawford, Katina D’Onise, Celene E. Domitrovich, Greg J. Duncan, Susan Egerter, Michelle M. Englund, Temitope O. Erinosho, Kevin D. Frick, Michael K. Georgieff, Scott D. Gest, Bernard Guyer, Momoko Hayakawa, Ariel Kalil, Pinar Karaca-Mandic, Samuel A. Kleiner, Narayana Kocherlakota, John W. Lynch, Sai Ma, Laurie T. Martin, Robyn A. Mcdermott, Robin E. Mockenhaupt, Robert L. Nix, Helen Raikes, Arthur J. Reynolds, Arthur J. Rolnick, Sharon Rolnick, Lawrence J. Schweinhart, Amy Susman-Stillman, Judy A. Temple, Jim Thorp, Dianne S. Ward, Janet A. Welsh, Barry White, Sung J. Choi Yoo, Kathleen M. Ziol-Guest
- Edited by Arthur J. Reynolds, University of Minnesota, Arthur J. Rolnick, University of Minnesota, Judy A. Temple, University of Minnesota
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- Book:
- Health and Education in Early Childhood
- Published online:
- 05 February 2015
- Print publication:
- 19 February 2015, pp xiii-xiv
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Use of vitamin D supplements during infancy in an international feeding trial
- Eveliina Lehtonen, Anne Ormisson, Anita Nucci, David Cuthbertson, Susa Sorkio, Mila Hyytinen, Kirsi Alahuhta, Carol Berseth, Marja Salonen, Shayne Taback, Margaret Franciscus, Teba González-Frutos, Tuuli E Korhonen, Margaret L Lawson, Dorothy J Becker, Jeffrey P Krischer, Mikael Knip, Suvi M Virtanen, , Thomas Mandrup-Poulsen, Elias Arjas, Åke Lernmark, Barbara Schmidt, Jeffrey P. Krischer, Hans K. Åkerblom, Mila Hyytinen, Mikael Knip, Katriina Koski, Matti Koski, Eeva Pajakkala, Marja Salonen, David Cuthbertson, Jeffrey P. Krischer, Linda Shanker, Brenda Bradley, Hans-Michael Dosch, John Dupré, William Fraser, Margaret Lawson, Jeffrey L. Mahon, Mathew Sermer, Shayne P. Taback, Dorothy Becker, Margaret Franciscus, Anita Nucci, Jerry Palmer, Minna Pekkala, Suvi M. Virtanen, Jacki Catteau, Neville Howard, Patricia Crock, Maria Craig, Cheril L. Clarson, Lynda Bere, David Thompson, Daniel Metzger, Colleen Marshall, Jennifer Kwan, David K. Stephure, Daniele Pacaud, Wendy Schwarz, Rose Girgis, Marilyn Thompson, Shayne P. Taback, Daniel Catte, Margaret L. Lawson, Brenda Bradley, Denis Daneman, Mathew Sermer, Mary-Jean Martin, Valérie Morin, Lyne Frenette, Suzanne Ferland, Susan Sanderson, Kathy Heath, Céline Huot, Monique Gonthier, Maryse Thibeault, Laurent Legault, Diane Laforte, Elizabeth A. Cummings, Karen Scott, Tracey Bridger, Cheryl Crummell, Robyn Houlden, Adriana Breen, George Carson, Sheila Kelly, Koravangattu Sankaran, Marie Penner, Richard A. White, Nancy King, James Popkin, Laurie Robson, Eva Al Taji, Irena Aldhoon, Pavla Mendlova, Jan Vavrinec, Jan Vosahlo, Ludmila Brazdova, Jitrenka Venhacova, Petra Venhacova, Adam Cipra, Zdenka Tomsikova, Petra Krckova, Pavla Gogelova, Ülle Einberg, Mall-Anne Riikjärv, Anne Ormisson, Vallo Tillmann, Päivi Kleemola, Anna Parkkola, Heli Suomalainen, Anna-Liisa Järvenpää, Anu-Maaria Hämälainen, Hannu Haavisto, Sirpa Tenhola, Pentti Lautala, Pia Salonen, Susanna Aspholm, Heli Siljander, Carita Holm, Samuli Ylitalo, Raisa Lounamaa, Anja Nuuja, Timo Talvitie, Kaija Lindström, Hanna Huopio, Jouni Pesola, Riitta Veijola, Päivi Tapanainen, Abram Alar, Paavo Korpela, Marja-Liisa Käär, Taina Mustila, Ritva Virransalo, Päivi Nykänen, Bärbel Aschemeier, Thomas Danne, Olga Kordonouri, Dóra Krikovszky, László Madácsy, Yeganeh Manon Khazrai, Ernesto Maddaloni, Paolo Pozzilli, Carla Mannu, Marco Songini, Carine de Beaufort, Ulrike Schierloh, Jan Bruining, Margriet Bisschoff, Aleksander Basiak, Renata Wasikowa, Marta Ciechanowska, Grazyna Deja, Przemyslawa Jarosz-Chobot, Agnieszka Szadkowska, Katarzyna Cypryk, Malgorzata Zawodniak-Szalapska, Luis Castano, Teba Gonzalez Frutos, Mirentxu Oyarzabal, Manuel Serrano-Ríos, María Teresa Martínez-Larrad, Federico Gustavo Hawkins, Dolores Rodriguez Arnau, Johnny Ludvigsson, Malgorzata Smolinska Konefal, Ragnar Hanas, Bengt Lindblad, Nils-Osten Nilsson, Hans Fors, Maria Nordwall, Agne Lindh, Hans Edenwall, Jan Aman, Calle Johansson, Margrit Gadient, Eugen Schoenle, Dorothy Becker, Ashi Daftary, Margaret Franciscus, Carol Gilmour, Jerry Palmer, Rachel Taculad, Marilyn Tanner-Blasiar, Neil White, Uday Devaskar, Heather Horowitz, Lisa Rogers, Roxana Colon, Teresa Frazer, Jose Torres, Robin Goland, Ellen Greenberg, Maudene Nelson, Holly Schachner, Barney Softness, Jorma Ilonen, Massimo Trucco, Lynn Nichol, Erkki Savilahti, Taina Härkönen, Mikael Knip, Outi Vaarala, Kristiina Luopajärvi, Hans-Michael Dosch
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- Journal:
- Public Health Nutrition / Volume 17 / Issue 4 / April 2014
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 24 June 2013, pp. 810-822
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Objective
To examine the use of vitamin D supplements during infancy among the participants in an international infant feeding trial.
DesignLongitudinal study.
SettingInformation about vitamin D supplementation was collected through a validated FFQ at the age of 2 weeks and monthly between the ages of 1 month and 6 months.
SubjectsInfants (n 2159) with a biological family member affected by type 1 diabetes and with increased human leucocyte antigen-conferred susceptibility to type 1 diabetes from twelve European countries, the USA, Canada and Australia.
ResultsDaily use of vitamin D supplements was common during the first 6 months of life in Northern and Central Europe (>80 % of the infants), with somewhat lower rates observed in Southern Europe (>60 %). In Canada, vitamin D supplementation was more common among exclusively breast-fed than other infants (e.g. 71 % v. 44 % at 6 months of age). Less than 2 % of infants in the USA and Australia received any vitamin D supplementation. Higher gestational age, older maternal age and longer maternal education were study-wide associated with greater use of vitamin D supplements.
ConclusionsMost of the infants received vitamin D supplements during the first 6 months of life in the European countries, whereas in Canada only half and in the USA and Australia very few were given supplementation.
The Optical/Near-IR Colours of Red Quasars
- Paul J. Francis, Matthew T. Whiting, Rachel L. Webster
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- Journal:
- Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia / Volume 17 / Issue 1 / 2000
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 05 March 2013, pp. 56-71
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We present quasi-simultaneous multi-colour optical/near-IR photometry for 157 radio selected quasars, forming an unbiassed sub-sample of the Parkes Flat-Spectrum Sample. Data are also presented for 12 optically selected QSOs, drawn from the Large Bright QSO Survey. The spectral energy distributions of the radio- and optically-selected sources are quite different. The optically selected QSOs are all very similar: they have blue spectral energy distributions curving downwards at shorter wavelengths. Roughly 90% of the radio-selected quasars have roughly power-law spectral energy distributions, with slopes ranging from Fv∝v0 to Fv∝v−2. The remaining 10% have spectral energy distributions showing sharp peaks: these are radio galaxies and highly reddened quasars. Four radio sources were not detected down to magnitude limits of H ∼ 19·6. These are probably high redshift (z > 3) galaxies or quasars. We show that the colours of our red quasars lie close to the stellar locus in the optical: they will be hard to identify in surveys such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. If near-IR photometry is added, however, the red power-law sources can be clearly separated from the stellar locus: IR surveys such as 2MASS should be capable of finding these sources on the basis of their excess flux in the K-band.
The Spectra of Red Quasars
- Paul J. Francis, Catherine L. Drake, Matthew T. Whiting, Michael J. Drinkwater, Rachel L. Webster
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- Journal:
- Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia / Volume 18 / Issue 3 / 2001
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 05 March 2013, pp. 221-231
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We measure the spectral properties of a representative sub-sample of 187 quasars, drawn from the Parkes Half-Jansky, Flat-radio-spectrum Sample (PHFS). Quasars with a wide range of rest-frame optical/UV continuum slopes are included in the analysis: their colours range over 2 < B–K < 7. We present composite spectra of red and blue sub-samples of the PHFS quasars, and tabulate their emission line properties.
The median Hβ and [O III] emission line equivalent widths of the red quasar sub-sample are a factor of ten weaker than those of the blue quasar sub-sample. No significant differences are seen between the equivalent width distributions of the C IV, C III] and Mg II lines. Both the colours and the emission line equivalent widths of the red quasars can be explained by the addition of a featureless red synchrotron continuum component to an otherwise normal blue quasar spectrum. The red synchrotron component must have a spectrum at least as red as a power-law of the form Fυ α υ−2.8. The relative strengths of the blue and red components span two orders of magnitude at rest-frame 500 nm. The blue component is weaker relative to the red component in low optical luminosity sources. This suggests that the fraction of accretion energy going into optical emission from the jet is greater in lowluminosity quasars. This correlation between colour and luminosity may be of use in cosmological distance scale work.
This synchrotron model does not, however, fit ˜10% of the quasars, which have both red colours and high equivalent width emission lines.We hypothesise that these red, strong-lined quasars have intrinsically weak Big Blue Bumps.
There is no discontinuity in spectral properties between the BL Lac objects in our sample and the other quasars. BL Lac objects appear to be the red, low equivalent width tail of a continuous distribution. The synchrotron emission component only dominates the spectrum at longer wavelengths, so existing BL Lac surveys will be biased against high redshift objects. This will affect measurements of BL Lac evolution.
The blue PHFS quasars have significantly higher equivalent width C IV, Hβ and [O III] emission than a matched sample of optically selected QSOs.
Population responses of the Endangered White-breasted Thrasher Ramphocinclus brachyurus to a tourist development in Saint Lucia – conservation implications from a spatial modelling approach
- RACHEL L. WHITE, TIMOTHEUS JN. BAPTISTE, ALWIN DORNELLY, MATTHEW N. MORTON, MARK J. O’CONNELL, RICHARD P. YOUNG
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- Journal:
- Bird Conservation International / Volume 22 / Issue 4 / December 2012
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 18 May 2012, pp. 468-485
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Tourism development is one of the main contemporary drivers of habitat loss and fragmentation within the Caribbean Islands biodiversity hotspot. In Saint Lucia, construction of a hotel and golf course within coastal dry forest is directly threatening the largest known subpopulation of the Endangered White-breasted Thrasher Ramphocinclus brachyurus. Understanding how the species is responding to ongoing landscape change and identifying priority sites for conservation are imperative for planning its long-term conservation. In this study, a four year White-breasted Thrasher monitoring dataset (2006–2009) and landscape-scale environmental variables were used to: a) identify, characterise and map spatio-temporal patterns of White-breasted Thrasher encounter rate (an abundance proxy) within and outside the tourist development site; b) determine landscape-scale environmental variables that influence such patterns, and c) produce an island-wide predictive map of potentially suitable habitat. Observed patterns in encounter rates within and outside the development site were consistent with thrashers being displaced from cleared areas of forest and crowding into intact forest patches to the north and west of the golf course. A year after the period of the most extensive habitat clearance, White-breasted Thrasher numbers declined markedly leading to a 55% reduction in encounter rate within the development site over the four years of the study. The habitat suitability model predicted that a range of sites outside of the known geographic range of the thrasher are potentially suitable, some of which merit further surveys for potentially undetected populations. Given these findings, it is vital that patches of suitable dry forest adjacent to the tourist development are protected and contiguous natural habitat inside the tourist development is preserved.
Contributors
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- By Sonia Ancoli-Israel, Ragnar Asplund, Michel Billiard, Theresa M. Buckley, Rohit Budhiraja, Robert N. Butler, Daniel J. Buysse, Scott S. Campbell, Daniel P. Cardinali, Julie Carrier, Cynthia L. Comella, Jana R. Cooke, Pietro Cortelli, Agnès Demazieres, Glenna A. Dowling, Luigi Ferini-Strambi, Philip R. Gehrman, Nalaka Sudheera Gooneratne, David S. Hallegua, Patrick J. Hanly, David G. Harper, Orla P. Hornung, Magdolna Hornyak, Michal Karasek, Milton Kramer, Andrew D. Krystal, Malcolm H. Lader, Rachel Leproult, Kenneth L. Lichstein, Andrea H.S. Loewen, Rémy Luthringer, Laurin J. Mack, Evelyn Mai, Atul Malhotra, Jennifer L. Martin, Judy Mastick, Monique A.J. Mets, Andrew A. Monjan, Timothy H. Monk, Daniel Monti, Jaime M. Monti, Patricia J. Murphy, C. Ineke Neutel, Eric A. Nofzinger, Seithikurippu R. Pandi-Perumal, Scott B. Patton, Donald B. Penzien, Max H. Pittler, Giora Pillar, Marc J. Poulin, Louis J. Ptácek, Stuart F. Quan, Jeanetta C. Rains, Megan E. Ruiter, Bruce D. Rybarczyk, Colin M. Shapiro, Vijay Kumar Sharma, D. Warren Spence, Kai Spiegelhalder, Luc Staner, Stephanie A. Studenski, Nikola N. Trajanovic, Eve Van Cauter, Gregory S. Vander Wal, Joris C. Verster, Aleksandar Videnovic, Matthew P. Walker, Daniel J. Wallace, David K. Welsh, David P. White, Barbara Wider, Theresa B. Young, Stefano Zanigni
- Edited by S. R. Pandi-Perumal, Jaime M. Monti, Universidad de la República, Uruguay, Andrew A. Monjan, National Institute on Aging, Bethesda, Maryland
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- Book:
- Principles and Practice of Geriatric Sleep Medicine
- Published online:
- 04 August 2010
- Print publication:
- 26 November 2009, pp ix-xii
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