Health care personnel

Most health care workers are at risk for exposure to many diseases in the normal course of their work. Additionally, health care workers may transmit vaccine-preventable diseases to their patients. At the time of employment and on a regular basis, health care workers should be screened for immunity to measles, rubella, and varicella if found to be non-immune, the measles, mumps, and rubella, and varicella vaccines should be administered. The hepatitis B series should be given if not already completed. Tetanus should be updated and given every 10 years. Health care personnel in hospitals and ambulatory settings with direct patient contact should receive Tdap if not already received an interval as short as 2 years from the last tetanus-containing vaccine should be used. Priority for receiving Tdap should be given to personnel with direct contact with infants less than 12 months of age. 

All health care personnel should be strongly encouraged to receive the influenza vaccine yearly in order to prevent transmission of influenza within the health care facility and to decrease employee absenteeism for influenza-related reasons. The vaccine should be made available to employees at the workplace, free of charge. Employees should be asked to sign a declination if refusing to receive the influenza vaccine. Additionally, health care facilities should report the number of health care personnel receiving influenza vaccine as a patient safety measure.19... 

Occupational indications Health-care personnel and employees of long-term care and assisted-living facilities. 

The ideal method for substantial improvement of current vaccines is to develop formulations that would provide time-released doses of immunogens that could replace the need for multiple visits and booster shots. Controlled release vaccines would be particularly advantageous in the third world, where a repeated immunization of the vaccine by health-care personnel is difficult to achieve [37],... 

Only physicians experienced in immunosuppressive therapy and management of organ transplant patients should prescribe daclizumab. The physician responsible for daclizumab administration should have complete information requisite for the follow-up of the patient. Daclizumab should only be administered by health care personnel trained in the administration of the drug who have available adequate laboratory and supportive medical resources. 

The Drug Information Centre provides a unique learning environment for the education of clinical pharmacologists, other medical doctors, information pharmacists or information technicians, and for any other health care personnel that need training in clinical pharmacology, drug evaluation and the rational use of drugs. 

According to the current, still limited knowledge, responsible recommendations should be communicated effectively to health care personnel and patients. Here care must be taken to avoid careless prescription of susceptible drugs without unnecessary overreaction leading to complete avoidance of citrus products, because these contain significant amounts of antioxidant phytochemicals with significant health benefits. 

There are three types of data sources which nay be used for the identification of workers I) registers based on occupation (e.g. Union registers. Register of Health Care Personnel). 2) local registers of the employers, and 3) population census. 

Multidisciplinary educational programs should be developed for health care personnel about medication error prevention. Because many errors happen when procedures are not followed, this is one area on which to focus through newsletters and in-service training. It also is important for pharmacy staff not just to focus on their own internal errors but also to look at other pharmacies errors and methods of prevention and to learn from them. Organizations such as the ISMP, USP, and many others provide ongoing features to facilitate these reviews in publications such as Hospital Pharmacy, Pharmacy Today, U.S. Pharmacist, and Pharmacy and Therapeutics or newsletters that report on current medication safety issues and offer recommendations for changes. 

Oai xjtional indicdions- Health-care personnel and public-safety workers who are exposed to blood or other potentially infedbus body fluids. 

Disaster planners have many complicated problems to address, particularly given the current daily stresses on the EHS system. A thorough understanding of the EHS system and its challenges can help ensure that the developed system can work efficiently and safely during a mass casualty incident or disaster. This brief overview should provide health care personnel an introduction to this large and rapidly evolving topic. 

The sooner a rapid assessment begins, the quicker the state and local public health authorities can respond to circumstances specific to the event. Most survivors of the event will likely have been examined by health care personnel within 16 hours after the event. By this time, the local or state health department can begin a rapid assessment of casualties. 

If multiple patients are present, they should be cared for in one area of the hospital to minimize exposure to other patients and health care personnel. 

Without being properly instructed about methods used for administering i.v. medications to pediatric patients, health care personnel may give a medication incorrectly, resulting in an inappropriate or unexpected... 

As a result of investigations of the toxicity of hexachlorophene in animals and reports of accidental intoxication in France, the FDA in 1972 banned all nonprescription uses of this drug, restricting hexachlorophene to prescription use only, as a surgical scrub and hand-wash product for health-care personnel. Hexachlorophene was... 

Health-care personnel preparing and administering anticancer therapies may be occupationally exposed to semustine by inhalation, dermal contact, or accidental ingestion. 

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