Qualitative interview study of strategies to support healthcare personnel mental health through an occupational health lens.

Background: Employee Occupational Health ('occupational health') clinicians have expansive perspectives of the experience of healthcare personnel. Integrating mental health into the purview of occupational health is a newer approach that could combat historical limitations of healthcare personnel mental health programmes, which have been isolated and underused.

Objective: We aimed to document innovation and opportunities for supporting healthcare personnel mental health through occupational health clinicians.

Promising Strategies to Support COVID-19 Vaccination of Healthcare Personnel: Qualitative Insights from the VHA National Implementation.

Background: In August 2021, up to 30% of Americans were uncertain about taking the COVID-19 vaccine, including some healthcare personnel (HCP).

Objective: Our objective was to identify barriers and facilitators of the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) HCP vaccination program.

Design: We conducted key informant interviews with employee occupational health (EOH) providers, using snowball recruitment.

Protecting the healthcare workforce during COVID-19: a qualitative needs assessment of employee occupational health in the US national Veterans Health Administration.

Objective: Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, US Veterans Health Administration (VHA) employee occupational health (EOH) providers were tasked with assuming a central role in coordinating employee COVID-19 screening and clearance for duty, representing entirely novel EOH responsibilities. In a rapid qualitative needs assessment, we aimed to identify learnings from the field to support the vastly expanding role of EOH providers in a national healthcare system.

Methods: We employed rapid qualitative analysis of key informant interviews in a maximal variation sample on the parameters of job type, rural versus urban and provider gender.

Tuberculosis Screening, Testing, and Treatment of US Health Care Personnel: ACOEM and NTCA Joint Task Force on Implementation of the 2019 MMWR Recommendations.

: On May 17, 2019, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Tuberculosis Controllers Association issued new Recommendations for Tuberculosis Screening, Testing, and Treatment of Health Care Personnel, United States, 2019, updating the health care personnel-related sections of the Guidelines for Preventing the Transmission of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in Health-Care Settings, 2005. This companion document offers the collective effort and experience of occupational health, infectious disease, and public health experts from major academic and public health institutions across the United States and expands on each section of the 2019 recommendations to provide clarifications, explanations, and considerations that go beyond the 2019 recommendations to answer questions that may arise and to offer strategies for implementation.

Tuberculosis Screening, Testing, and Treatment of U.S. Health Care Personnel: Recommendations from the National Tuberculosis Controllers Association and CDC, 2019.

The 2005 CDC guidelines for preventing Mycobacterium tuberculosis transmission in health care settings include recommendations for baseline tuberculosis (TB) screening of all U.S. health care personnel and annual testing for health care personnel working in medium-risk settings or settings with potential for ongoing transmission (1).

Negative Tuberculin Skin Test and Prediction of Reversion of QuantiFERON Interferon Gamma Release Assay in US Healthcare Workers.

QuantiFERON tuberculosis tests (QFT) reverted in (612) 77% of 1,094 low-risk healthcare workers (HCW) testing less than 1.16 IU/mL. Of HCW testing greater than 1.

A summary of meeting proceedings on addressing variability around the cut point in serial interferon-γ release assay testing.

On June 13, 2012, a group of key stakeholders, leaders, and national experts on tuberculosis (TB), occupational health, and laboratory science met in Atlanta, Georgia, to focus national discussion on the higher than expected positive results occurring among low-risk, unexposed healthcare workers undergoing serial testing with interferon-γ release assays (IGRAs). The objectives of the meeting were to present the latest clinical and operational research findings on the topic, to discuss evaluation and treatment algorithms that are emerging in the absence of national guidance, and to develop a consensus on the action steps needed to assist programs and physicians in the interpretation of serial testing IGRA results. This report summarizes its proceedings.

Delineating a Retesting Zone Using Receiver Operating Characteristic Analysis on Serial QuantiFERON Tuberculosis Test Results in US Healthcare Workers.

Objective. To find a statistically significant separation point for the QuantiFERON Gold In-Tube (QFT) interferon gamma release assay that could define an optimal "retesting zone" for use in serially tested low-risk populations who have test "reversions" from initially positive to subsequently negative results. Method.

Fever, abdominal pain, and leukopenia in a 13-year-old: a case-based review of meningococcemia.

The presenting symptoms of meningococcemia are protean, and the illness is rapidly progressive and often fatal, making it simultaneously one of the most dangerous and most important illnesses the Emergency Physician can encounter. It attacks the young and it is highly contagious. This report uses one of the many unusual presentations of meningococcemia as a framework for discussing the epidemiology, presentation, diagnosis, and treatment of meningococcal disease.