There was a very interesting artilce in the New York Times on August 21 bu Michael Kimmelman: In Redesigned Room, Hospital Patients May Feel Better Already. The article focuses on a move by the University Medical Center of Princeton to redesign hospital rooms. And Kimmelman discusses a variety of issues associated with hospital design. And there were …
Quick post here on a hospital water sampling study in Italy that found much higher levels of potentially pathogenic bacteria (e.g. Legionella) in aerators than in the rest of the plumbing system. Reading this gives a really good sense of how complicated it is to maintain a sufficiently sterile water distribution system for immunocompromised patients …
Definitely worth checking out this paper from Kyle Bibby’s lab: PLOS ONE: Shift in the Microbial Ecology of a Hospital Hot Water System following the Introduction of an On-Site Monochloramine Disinfection System. A key figure in the paper is Figure 2 which I post here. The figure shows a PCA based clustering of samples based on …
There is an article by Carrie Arnold in the new issue of EHP (Environmental Health Perspectives) should be of interest to some people out there: EHP — Rethinking Sterile: The Hospital Microbiome. In the article, Carrie Arnold discusses Jack Gilbert’s hospital microbiome project, hospital acquired infections, DNA based surveys of microbes, and work from the …
OK so I know nothing about this journal Medical Science | Journal. But the cover of their May issue is a figure from a a paper on hospital microbial ecology. The article is Deepa S, Abishek MU, Venkatesha D. The air as harbinger of infections in critical care units. Medical Science, 2014, 8(28), 8-13). Here …
Great article from Brooke Borel writing for NOVA Online, “Manipulating the Unseen Microbial Ecosystem–The Future of Hospitals?”. This covers some of the background of microbiology in hospitals, discusses work by both the BioBE Center and microBEnet… and of course the Hospital Microbiome Project as well as the NICU study from Jill Banfield’s lab. The article …
Not sure how I feel about this one so I’m going to just throw it out there for discussion. It’s a hand sanitizer built into a hospital door, on the theory that since compliance is apparently problem in hospitals they should make it part of a motion that people are doing anyway (e.g. opening doors). …
Well, most of the news I see about “germs” being found somewhere or other are germophobia in some way or another. I think this is a different case though: Kitchen Cutting Boards Remain a Source of Multi-Drug Resistant Bacteria After Use. Not sure if what they report is particularly unusual but seems disconcerting at first glance. …
Just a quick post here highlighting some preliminary research into a light-activated bactericidal surface that also has some effectiveness even in the dark. The surface is silicon coated with methylene blue, crystal violet, and gold nanoparticles. Sadly the article itself is paywalled (here), but here’s a link to a press release from the University where …
On March 7, 2014, Ben Johnson wrote an all-encompassing blog post about the microbiome of the classroom’s built environment. (Dr. Jonathan Eisen also mentions Johnson’s article in a blog post a day afterwards.) In his blog post, not only does Johnson describe the different types of microbes living on the walls, desks, and chairs in the classroom, but …