All health care workers should be vaccinated annually against influenza, and doing so should be a condition of new or continued employment, according to a position paper from the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America.

Emergency general surgery procedures are associated with high overall morbidity and serious morbidity/mortality, as well as widely varying quality of care among hospitals, a large national study has shown.

SANTA FE, N.M. – Treatment of bacterial vaginitis with tinidazole at 500 mg twice a day for 7 days was not significantly more efficacious than the standard dose of metronidazole, results from a single-center study demonstrated.

SAN ANTONIO (EGMN) – Data continue to show that diabetes education saves money.

VAIL, Colo. (EGMN) – A 5-year-old boy finds a used condom in the park. He decides it’s a really cool balloon, so he puts it in his mouth and tries to blow it up.

Approximately 40% of emergency department visits for sports-related concussions in young athletes occurred in children aged 8-13 years, based on data from concussion-related ED visits in the United States between 2001 and 2005, according to a study published online Aug. 30 in Pediatrics.

Annual estimates of influenza-associated deaths from 1976-2007 varied substantially by season, influenza virus type, underlying cause of death, and age group, according to revised statistical models, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported August 27 in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Children who are underinsured outnumber uninsured children and are almost as likely as uninsured children to have problems with health care access and quality, according to a study published Aug. 25 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

VAIL, Colo. (EGMN) – A patient arrives at the clinic with a recognized tick bite. To use prophylaxis for Lyme disease or not?

Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting and reflection, is a tricky period for clinicians treating people with diabetes.

Antimicrobial prophylaxis now should be administered within 60 minutes of the start of a cesarean delivery, rather than after cord clamping, which has been the preferred time for administration.

CARLSBAD, Calif. (EGMN) – The use of perfusion imaging criteria to select stroke patients for reperfusion therapy led to the successful treatment up to 72 hours after symptom onset in a review of 53 patients.

Gone are the large white boards at the emergency room of Inova Fair Oaks Hospital in Fairfax, Va. Two large flat-screen computer monitors have taken their place. The patient information displayed on the screens is constantly updated through small tablets cradled in the arms of physicians and nurses.

Question: Regarding physician liability arising from medication injuries, which of the following is most accurate?

The heat is a serious hazard for teenage athletes that each year results in more than 9,000 illnesses nationwide, according to a heat illness analysis from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Delays in the time from first contact with the health care system to treatment with primary percutaneous coronary intervention are linked to mortality for patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction, according to an historic follow-up study of more than 6,200 Danish heart patients.

SAN ANTONIO (EGMN) — An emergency department intervention delivered by a certified diabetes educator to patients who presented with uncontrolled hyperglycemia reduced the number of repeat visits and improved glycemic control at 6 months without increasing the risk of hypoglycemia.