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Infectious diseases discussed at forum
HUNTINGTON -- When it comes to learning about infections and critical care, local health-care workers often travel to national conferences to hear the top experts give the most up-to-date information.
But on Monday, they had to travel no further than the Marshall Medical Center at Cabell Huntington Hospital to hear renowned speakers from around the country.
Monday marked Marshall's first Annual Infectious Diseases and Critical Care Symposium, which drew physicians, nurses, medical students others interested in health care from throughout West Virginia, as well as Ohio and Kentucky, said Dr. Ahmad Nusair, who chaired the event and is medical director of infection control at Cabell Huntington Hospital.
"It's been very educational," said Sarah Flaherty, a third-year medical student at Marshall. "In this day and age, everyone has access to the research, but it's hard to stay current on everything because infectious disease crosses so many boundaries (into different fields of medicine)."
It's nice to attend an event with such high-caliber speakers who highlight the most important findings, she said.
Speakers at the event came from institutions such as Vanderbilt University, George Washington University, Case Western Reserve University and the University of Nebraska, and topics included staph infections such as MRSA, as well as clostridium difficile, a germ caused by antibiotics, and minimizing the spread of infection within hospitals.
Marshall has received approval from the Institutional Review Board to research MRSA here in the Huntington area.
That type of germ is carried on the skin of 1 percent of the general population, but not all get sick, Nusair said. An injury or a cut could set it off and it could become a skin infection, or something as serious as a bad case of pneumonia, he said.
It often presents itself as a boil on the skin, which some might mistake for a spider bite, Nusair said.
There has been no outbreak of MRSA in the Huntington area, but Marshall wants to be proactive in studying how many people carry the benign form of the germ, particularly in places where people are in a confined space, such as a jail, a nursing home or even school. He hopes that by next year's symposium, researchers will have collected specific information about how prevalent the benign germ is in this region.
Also at the symposium, health-care workers learned about clostridium difficile, a germ that causes diarrhea, mainly from antibiotics, Nusair said.
"It seems to be the mindset that when people are sick, they say, 'Give me some antibiotics,' " he said. "We're trying to teach people not to use antibiotics unless they really need them."
Often, an antibiotic doesn't even go after the virus that is causing a problem, and all patients end up doing is upsetting the balance of good and bad bacteria in their systems. They kill off good bacteria, which allows bad bacteria to thrive.
Nusair also wants to make sure that patients are asking their doctors for possible side effects of the antibiotics before they pop the pills, and that patients are not sharing antibiotics with other people. Some patients might not finish a bottle, so they put it in the medicine cabinet and when a spouse or child gets sick, they share the same antibiotic. That is not safe, Nusair said.
He added that national research shows that areas where antibiotics are more frequently dispersed have more incidence of the MRSA staph infection.
One other topic discussed at the symposium was how to contain infection in a hospital setting, and how Cabell has some new measures in place. Visitors to the hospital might notice hand sanitizer in the hallways, the emergency room and patients' rooms. They're encouraged to use it, and they're encouraged to ask health-care workers to wash their hands before caring for their loved ones.
Basic hygienic practices are important for staff as well as visitors, Nusair said. That includes not only hand-washing, but wearing a mask or gloves if visiting a patient with an infection, and not bringing young children or those with weaker immune systems into that environment.
Patients should know that they can ask hospitals for their infection rate in each department, Nusair added. Cabell Huntington Hospital's goal is to get its hospital-wide infection rate down below the national average, he said. Some departments, such as orthopaedics, already are.
"We want the public involved," Nusair said. "We don't want them to be scared, but they can help us bring down our infection rate."
Robert Stanton, a pharmacist at Cabell Huntington Hospital, commended Nusair for organizing Monday's event and said it covered some things that were new to him, like how much harder it is to eliminate some bacteria from the hands than others. Other things he did know but was glad to see shared with others, such as how important timing is in the administration of antibiotics for critically ill patients.
"It's always good to have a core collection of people hear the same message," Stanton said. "When we go forward and implement programs, everyone has the same background."
