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Hand hygiene compliance is the key in neonatology units: General Hospital Vienna relies on modern technology for performance feedback

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On a global scale, infections are the third leading cause of neonatal mortality. Therefore, a focus on careful hand hygiene practice plays a valuable part in infection prevention strategy, especially at the newborn ward. In the neonatology unit of the General Hospital Vienna/Medical University Vienna, an evidence-based, AI-enhanced quality assurance system provides immediate visual feedback […]

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World Antimicrobial Awareness Week 2021: Semmelweis Foundation went blue

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For World Antibiotics Week, which takes place every year in November, the Semmelweis Foundation has launched a high-profile awareness campaign and called on employees and supporters to “go blue”. The goal of the social media campaign was also to take the public along in the responsibility and to raise awareness for a more thoughtful use […]

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Handwashing(c) freepik

Global Handwashing Day 2021: Hand hygiene and the fight against multi-resistant germs and hospital infections

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Healthcare facilities are still a place of healing, but what if instead of healing, the opposite happens: and you get sick ? What we were less aware of just a few years ago, is unfortunately becoming more present today, also due to the Corona pandemic: Deaths resulting from infections in health care facilities. In Europe […]

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Viruses can help when antibiotics no longer work

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Every now and then, patients can be found to be resistant to antibiotics. Every year, thousands of people die from infections caused by bacterial inflammation against no antibiotic is effective. This is where physicians often begin to doubt and to laboriously search for alternatives. But, there are already therapies that have been used for 100 […]

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Raymond Lustig

It was obstetrician Ignaz Semmelweis who first busted the silo to work with pathological anatomy, and then busted the silo even more dramatically in working with midwives!

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Nice feedbacks regarding the issue (Silo Busting) of our 3rd CEE Semmelweis Conference (March 12-13, 2019) are coming not only from the healthcare community, but from people who are deeply involved in the Semmelweis story. I was especially touched by the feedback of Raymond Lustig, composer of the great Semmelweis opera: “It was obstetrician Ignaz […]

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Bernhard Küenburg in front of the Semmelweis Statue in ViennaSemmelweis Foundation

3rd Semmelweis CEE Hygiene Conference (12 and 13 March 2019) – “Silo Busting – We urgently need more interdisciplinarity in our fragmented healthcare system”

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Ladies and Gentlemen, I am very pleased to announce that the 3rd Semmelweis CEE Hygiene Conference will take place on 12 and 13 March 2019 in Vienna. Please save the dates! The 2019 Conference will be focusing on “Silo Busting – We urgently need more interdisciplinarity in our fragmented healthcare system”. Too often hospital departments […]

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Student in front of the Semmelweis Statue

1st SEM-Talk – Interview with medical student Jürgen Alphonsus on hospital hygiene

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Our first SEM-Talk was just put online. Take a look at our youtube-video showing an interview with the medical student Jürgen Alphonsus from Vienna. He shares his first experiences with hygiene in hospitals: “During my work in the field of surgery in hospitals where hygiene is of utmost importance, I was positively surprised. The majority […]

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Antibiotic Pills reserve

Increasing resistance to important antibiotics of last resort – But the reserve of those drugs also often does not work

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Germs with resistance to important antibiotics of last resort are detected in a growing number of hospital patients in Germany. This shows the data from a report of the National Reference Center for Gram-negative Pathogens (NRZ) of the Ruhr-University Bochum, recently published by the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin. We interviewed Dr. Niels Pfennigwerth about […]

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Summer, holidaytime – but not for hospital germs!

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The Infection Prevention Community on Social Media is less communicative at the moment. No wonder, many people are on holiday. One might gain the impression that the problem of healthcare associated infections is not so relevant.  But of course – but it just seems to be that way. The germs are not on holiday – […]

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Prof. Matt Cooper

Antibiotic Octapeptin – forgotten, but offers now hope against superbugs!

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Octapeptin was discovered in the late 1970s but were not selected for development at the time. Now researchers synthesized the antibiotic. In the occasion of the recently published study we interviewed Prof. Matt Cooper, Director of the IMB’s Centre for Superbug Solutions. In the face of increasing antimicrobial resistance it has become clear that new […]

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