Establishing Competencies for a Global Health Workforce: Recommendations from the Association of Pacific Rim Universities.

Background: The Association of Pacific Rim Universities Global Health Program facilitates exchange of information, knowledge and experiences in global health education and research among its 50 member universities. Despite the proliferation of global health educational programs worldwide, a lack of consensus exists regarding core competencies in global health training and how these are best taught.

Methods: A workshop was convened with 30 faculty, university administrators, students, and NGO workers representing both the Global North and South to gain consensus on core competencies in masters'-level global health training.

Changing culture in interventional areas to promote patient safety.

During the past decade, physicians have begun to perform an increasing number of interventional procedures in various locations outside the traditional OR. Changes in technology and practice have generated the need for a paradigm shift about perioperative practice because these interventional areas have become perioperative centers of care in which patients undergo operative and other invasive procedures. Physicians, nursing staff members, support staff members, and administrators in these interventional areas must consider perioperative practice standards, institutional policies, state practice acts, and regulatory and accreditation requirements when creating policies and procedures.

The intended-and unintended-consequences of healthcare reform.

Healthcare reform will affect providers by: Changing employer-sponsored health plans. Cutting Medicare payment. Expanding Medicaid coverage.

Increased activity of Coxsackievirus B1 strains associated with severe disease among young infants in the United States, 2007-2008.

Background: Enterovirus infections are very common and typically cause mild illness, although neonates are at higher risk for severe illness. In 2007, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) received multiple reports of severe neonatal illness and death associated with coxsackievirus B1 (CVB1), a less common enterovirus serotype not previously associated with death in surveillance reports to the CDC.

Methods: This report includes clinical, epidemiologic, and virologic data from cases of severe neonatal illness associated with CVB1 reported during the period from 2007 through 2008 to the National Enterovirus Surveillance System (NESS), a voluntary, passive surveillance system.

Detection of immunoglobulin M antibody to hepatitis A virus in Alaska residents without other evidence of hepatitis.

During a 38-month period, 13 of 41 persons with test results positive for IgM antibody to hepatitis A virus did not meet the case definition for hepatitis A or have a clear indication for testing, which suggests that test results were falsely positive. No single testing platform or kit was used. Health care providers should restrict serologic testing for hepatitis A to patients with clinical or epidemiologic indications.