Holiday gift idea!

Anyone who practices hospital infection prevention knows how many “data gaps” exist—gaps that make it very difficult to decide which approaches ought to be implemented in your own facility. Should we institute a no-touch disinfection technology? Implement universal decolonization? Use gowns and gloves for all ICU patients? Spend money on an automated hand hygiene monitoring system? Establish a bare-below-the-elbows attire policy? Invest in antimicrobial impregnated textiles (curtains, scrubs, etc.)? Recommend probiotics for selected patient populations?

In the absence of definitive studies, we want carefully considered opinions from smart people who have a wealth of experience in infection prevention. Right?

So if you’re looking for holiday gift ideas for your favorite hospital epidemiologist or infection preventionist, check out this new textbook: “Infection Prevention: New Perspectives and Controversies”, edited by our friends Gonzalo Bearman, Silvia Munoz-Price, Dan Morgan and Rekha Murthy. The text is a nice companion to this blog—in addition to covering all the above questions (and more), the chapters are generally concise, well-written and appropriately referenced. The emphasis is not on being encyclopedic, but on addressing the top-of-mind issues that hospital epidemiologists and infection preventionists deal with most often.