Fifteen surgical team members at Bon Secours St. Francis Hospital in Charleston, S.C., were recently restricted from the OR for 11 days after they tested positive for methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus.

A news story published in the (Charleston, S.C.) Post and Courier says hospital officials ordered the leaves of absence when 5 out of 1,500 patients who underwent surgery at the hospital in July and August tested positive for MSSA.

The infections were localized to surgical sites and were non-life threatening, and all 5 patients have recovered fully, according to the story. No SSIs have been identified since the infected staff members completed antibiotic treatments and returned to work.

The infections sparked a review of the hospital's OR infection control practices, according to Steven Shapiro, MD, the chief medical officer at Bon Secours. He told the Post and Courier that patients' incorrect home care may have caused the infections.

He allayed potential public fears by emphasizing that MSSA is not as dangerous as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and noting that his hospital's incidence of SSIs is well below the national rate of 2.6%.

Daniel Cook

Children undergoing routine surgeries may not be receiving adequate pain control medications after they've been discharged, according to a study in the journal Pediatrics.

For the study, researchers at the University of California at Irvine and the Children's Hospital of Orange County, Calif., assessed post-op pain in 261 patients aged from 2 to 12 years old who had undergone routine tonsillectomies and adenoidectomies.

After the first post-surgical day at home, 86% of parents reported that their children experienced "significant overall pain." But about one-fourth of the parents gave their children no pain medication or only a single dose, according to the study. Two-thirds of the children still experienced significant pain on the third day after surgery, but 41% received zero or minimal pain medication by that point.

"Optimal pain management after surgery is achieved by providing round-the-clock analgesic treatment to prevent pain recurrence," the authors explain, adding that while hospital treatment of pediatric post-op pain has improved, at-home care has not. They speculate that parents may hold back on post-op pain meds because they fear their children will become addicted, do not understand how much pain their children are in or believe "analgesics should be used only as a last resort."

The authors urge researchers to focus on finding ways to translate knowledge about the benefits of post-op pain control to parents of pediatric patients.

Irene Tsikitas

It is nearly twice as likely that a Mexican-American over 50 years old hasn't undergone colorectal cancer screening than a non-Hispanic white counterpart has, according to a recently published study.

Language may be the primary barrier, report researchers from San Diego State University in the summer issue of the journal Ethnicity and Disease, who found that 43% of the Mexican-Americans surveyed had never had a colonoscopy or fecal occult blood test.

Older patients in that population were more likely to have difficulty understanding their physicians and less likely to have up-to-date information on when to undergo colorectal cancer screenings. Three times as many Mexican-Americans as non-Hispanic whites said they didn't know they needed to be screened.

The researchers analyzed telephone survey responses from 1,529 Mexican-Americans in the 2005 California Health Interview Study. Since about half of those surveyed had limited English language skills, the authors suggest creating bilingual patient educational material and clinical documents and hiring bilingual staff and translators in order to encourage screening among patient populations that may be overlooked due to linguistic hurdles.

"Although Latinos may have basic access to healthcare, the quality of healthcare they receive may be poorer due to ... language barriers," write the authors.

Kent Steinriede

An OR's temperature should be between 68 and 73 degrees F, according to AORN's recommendations for providing a safe environment of care. In an OR that's too cold, patients lose heat and run the risk of suffering inadvertent hypothermia. Go to our Web site to take this week's InstaPoll on OR temperatures and to see real-time results. We'll report the results in this space next week.

Many not planning on raises for staff. Nearly half (45%) of the 130 facility managers who answered last week's poll on staff raises say their staff isn't getting a cost-of-living pay raise next year. More than one-third (35%) indicate their staff will receive a 2% to 4% raise, 17% are planning on giving 2% raises and only 3% forecast an increase of more than 4%.

Dan O'Connor