Publications by authors named "Thomas B Fomby"
Background: Health care-associated infections (HAIs) are a socio-technical problem. We evaluated the impact of a social change intervention on health care personnel (HCP), called "positive deviance" (PD), on patient safety culture related to infection prevention among HCP.
Methods: This observational study was done in 6 medical wards at an 800-bed public academic hospital in the United States.
Importance: After progressive declines over recent years, in 2012 West Nile virus epidemics resurged nationwide, with the greatest number of cases centered in Dallas County, Texas.
Objective: To analyze the epidemiologic, meteorologic, and geospatial features of the 2012 Dallas West Nile virus epidemic to guide future prevention efforts.
Design, Setting, And Patients: Public health surveillance of Dallas County, an area of 2257 km2 and population of 2.
Background: Nonperforating appendicitis is primarily a disease of children, and nonperforating diverticulitis affects mostly older adults. Apart from these age differences, the diseases share many epidemiological features, such as association with better hygiene and low-fiber diets.
Hypothesis: Nonperforating appendicitis and nonperforating diverticulitis are different manifestations of the same underlying colonic process and, if so, should be temporally related.
Hypothesis: What causes appendicitis is not known; however, studies have suggested a relationship between viral diseases and appendicitis. Building on evidence of cyclic patterns of appendicitis with apparent outbreaks consistent with an infectious etiology, we hypothesized that there is a relationship between population rates of appendicitis and several infectious diseases.
Design: Epidemiologic study.