SHEA Guidelines and Expert Guidance Documents

In large part, the discussion about the rationale for influenza vaccination of healthcare personnel, the strategies designed to improve influenza vaccination rates in this population, and the recommendations made in the 2005 paper still stand. This position paper notes new evidence released since publication of the 2005 paper and strengthens SHEA’s position on the importance of influenza vaccination of HCP. This document does not discuss vaccine allocation during times of vaccine shortage, because the 2005 SHEA Position Paper still serves as the society’s official statement on that issue. SHEA views influenza vaccination of HCP as a core patient and HCP safety practice with which noncompliance should not be tolerated. Therefore, for the safety of both patients and HCP, SHEA endorses a policy in which annual influenza vaccination is a condition of both initial and continued HCP employment and/or professional privileges.

Authors: Thomas R. Talbot, Hilary Babcock, Arthur L. Caplan, Deborah Cotton, Lisa L. Maragakis, Gregory A. Poland, Edward J. Septimus, Michael L. Tapper and, David J. Weber

https://doi.org/10.1086/656558

This SHEA guideline provides recommendations for disinfection and sterilization of medical instruments in order to prevent Creutzfeldt‐Jakob disease (CJD), a degenerative neurologic disorder caused by a proteinaceous infectious agent. Prion diseases elicit no immune response, result in a noninflammatory pathologic process confined to the central nervous system, have an incubation period of years, and usually are fatal within 1 year after diagnosis.

Authors: Rutala WA, Weber DJ

Reviewed: 2014

https://doi.org/10.1086/650197

This SHEA/APIC guideline provides recommendations for prevention and control of infections in long-term care facilities, including UTIs, respiratory tract infections, skin and soft-tissue infections and infestations, gastrointestinal infections, infections caused by antibiotic-resistant organisms, and epidemic infections. It also reviews the structure and elements of infection control programs in the long-term care setting, regulatory considerations, education, and surveillance.

Authors: Bratzler D, Dellinger EP, Olsen K, Perl T, Autwaerter P, Bolon M, Fish D, Napolitano L, Sawyer R, Slain D, Steinberg J, Weinstein R

https://doi.org/10.1086/592416

The SHEA Board of Directors appointed a task force to draft this evidence‐based guideline to assist hospital epidemiologists in justifying and expanding their programs. Part 1 describes the basic steps needed to complete a business‐case analysis for an individual institution. A case study based on a representative infection control intervention is provided. Part 2 reviews important basic economic concepts and describes approaches that can be used to assess the financial impact of infection prevention, surveillance, and control interventions, as well as the attributable costs of specific healthcare‐associated infections. Both parts of the guideline aim to provide the hospital epidemiologist, infection control professional, administrator, and researcher with the tools necessary to complete a thorough business‐case analysis and to undertake an outcome study of a nosocomial infection or an infection control intervention.

Authors: Eli N. Perencevich, Patricia W. Stone, Sharon B. Wright, Yehuda Carmeli, David N. Fisman, and Sara E. Cosgrove

https://doi.org/10.1086/521852