The increasing diversity in the US population is reflected in the patients who healthcare professionals treat. Unfortunately, this diversity is not always represented by the demographic characteristics of healthcare professionals themselves. Patients from underrepresented groups in the United States can experience the effects of unintentional cognitive (unconscious) biases that derive from cultural stereotypes in ways that perpetuate health inequities. Unconscious bias can also affect healthcare professionals in many ways, including patient-clinician interactions, hiring and promotion, and their own interprofessional interactions. The strategies described in this article can help us recognize and mitigate unconscious bias and can help create an equitable environment in healthcare, including the field of infectious diseases.

The war in Tigray region of Ethiopia that started in November 2020 and is still ongoing has brought enormous damage to the health system. This analysis provides an assessment of the health system before and during the war. Evidence of damage was compiled from November 2020 to June 2021 from various reports by the interim government of Tigray, and also by international non-governmental organisations. Comparison was made with data from the prewar calendar year. Six months into the war, only 30% of hospitals, 17% of health centres, 11.5% of ambulances and none of the 712 health posts were functional. As of June 2021, the population in need of emergency food assistance in Tigray increased from less than one million to over 5.2 million. While the prewar performance of antenatal care, supervised delivery, postnatal care and children vaccination was 64%, 73%, 63% and 73%, respectively, but none of the services were likely to be delivered in the first 90 days of the war. A conservative estimate places the number of girls and women raped in the first 5 months of the war to be 10 000. These data indicate a widespread destruction of livelihoods and a collapse of the healthcare system. The use of hunger and rape as a weapon of war and the targeting of healthcare facilities are key components of the war. To avert worsening conditions, an immediate intervention is needed to deliver food and supplies and rehabilitate the healthcare delivery system and infrastructure.

BACKGROUND: Penicillin skin testing (PST) is a simple and reliable way of diagnosing penicillin allergy. After being off the market for 4 years, penicilloyl-polylysine was reintroduced in 2009 as PRE-PEN. We describe the negative predictive value (NPV) of PST and the impact on antibiotic selection in a sample of hospitalized patients with a reported history of penicillin allergy.

Active communication with an infectious disease practitioner can significantly reduce medical ICU antibiotic overuse by earlier modification or cessation of antibiotics without increasing mortality. This in turn can reduce healthcare costs, foster prodigious education, and strengthen relations between the subspecialties.

BackgroundHospital acquired infections occur at higher rates in low- and middle-income countries, like India, than in high-income countries. Effective implementation of infection control practices is crucial to reducing the transmission of hospital acquired infections at hospitals worldwide. Yet, no comprehensive assessments of the barriers to sustained, successful implementation of hospital interventions have been performed in Indian healthcare settings to date. The Systems Engineering Initiative for Patient Safety (SEIPS) model examines problems through the lens of interactions between people and systems. It is a natural fit for investigating the behavioral and systematic components of infection control practices.MethodsWe conducted a qualitative study to assess the facilitators and barriers to infection control practices at a 1250 bed tertiary care hospital in Haryana, northern India. Twenty semi-structured interviews of nurses and physicians, selected by convenience sampling, were conducted in English using an interview guide based on the SEIPS model. All interview data was subsequently transcribed and coded for themes.ResultsPerson, task, and organizational level factors were the primary barriers and facilitators to infection control at this hospital. Major barriers included a high rate of nursing staff turnover, time spent training new staff, limitations in language competency, and heavy clinical workloads. A well developed infection control team and an institutional climate that prioritizes infection control were major facilitators.ConclusionsInstitutional support is critical to the effective implementation of infection control practices. Prioritizing resources to recruit and retain trained, experienced nursing staff is also essential.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13756-017-0189-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.