Media Advisory

CDC releases toolkit to assist with patient notification events after unsafe medical practices

What

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a new toolkit to assist health departments and healthcare facilities with notifying patients after an infection control lapse or potential disease transmission during medical care. The toolkit includes the key steps a healthcare facility or public health department should take to initiate a patient notification and provides resources to assist with creating notification documents, planning media and communication strategies, establishing communication resources to support patient notification, and releasing notification letters.

Where

CDC’s Patient Notification Toolkit is available on-line.

CDC will be presenting the toolkit during a workshop at the APIC Annual Conference in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, on June 9th, and at a series of upcoming webinars and conferences for state and local health officials and communication professionals.

Additional Information:        

Since 2001, more than 150,000 patients have been potentially exposed to hepatitis B and C viruses and HIV due to unsafe medical practices in U.S. healthcare facilities. Last year, CDC and state health departments notified nearly 14,000 patients during a multistate outbreak of fungal meningitis and other infections. 

To learn more about this new resource, visit: http://www.cdc.gov/injectionsafety/pntoolkit/index.html.

 

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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

CDC works 24/7 saving lives, protecting people from health threats, and saving money through prevention. Whether these threats are global or domestic, chronic or acute, curable or preventable, natural disaster or deliberate attack, CDC is the nation’s health protection agency.