ST. PAUL, MN–3M ESPE Dental announces the appointment of James Ingebrand as its new President and General Manager, responsible for the strategic direction and overall operations of 3M ESPE.  Ingebrand has a 30-year career at 3M, much of it in healthcare including dental, which will allow him to very quickly transition into the new role.

 "Jim has a proven track record of business leadership," said Joaquin Delgado, Executive Vice President, 3M Health Care Business Group. "Prior to successfully leading 3M Drug Delivery Systems Division, Jim led our core dental business in 3M ESPE. Jim is very familiar with key players in the dental industry and will be a great leader for this business.”

Ingebrand’s previous positions within 3M include roles as President and General Manager of 3M Drug Delivery Systems, Global Business Director for 3M ESPE Dental and as the Marketing Director for the 3M Infection Prevention Division.

“When I left the dental group the first time around, it was a bittersweet departure because I had so quickly developed a passion for the oral care industry,” said Ingebrand. “So this really does feel like a homecoming of sorts, and I’m looking forward to leading 3M ESPE during a very exciting time in dentistry.”

Ingebrand started his career at 3M in 1984 as a marketing analyst in the Corporate Marketing Research Department. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry, as well as a Masters of Business Administration degree, both from the University of Minnesota.

ANNAPOLIS, MD — Registration is now open for the must-attend event of the year for those on the front lines of infection prevention in oral healthcare. The Organization for Safety, Asepsis and Prevention (OSAP) will host its 30^th Anniversary Symposium June 5–8 at the Hyatt Regency Minneapolis in Minneapolis, MN.

This landmark educational event addresses emerging and current issues of concern to dental professionals responsible for infection control and patient and provider safety. The OSAP Symposium is tailored to risk managers, infection control coordinators in large group practices, educators, consultants, compliance officers of state dental boards, researchers, policymakers and representatives from companies that sell infection control products.

In 2014, OSAP celebrates three decades of leading the fight for oral healthcare safety, and in keeping with that message, the theme of this year's Symposium is "Moving Forward to a Safer Tomorrow in Dentistry.”

"OSAP was conceived in the era of wet-fingered dentistry. The need for an organization dedicated to infection prevention was critical in the early 1980s and is even more relevant today,” said Therese Long, OSAP's executive director. "This year's Symposium marks OSAP's 30 years at the forefront of infection prevention in oral healthcare, and will look ahead to prepare its community of leaders for future challenges and opportunities in dental safety.”

Michael Osterholm, PhD, MPH, is this year's Dr. John S. Zapp keynote lecturer and will address emerging diseases, antibiotic resistance and how to adapt to and manage these issues of concern. Dr. Osterholm serves as the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) and is a world leader on public health preparedness for pandemics and bioterrorism.

With up to 18 hours of continuing education available, attendees will learn to describe current and emerging issues related to infection prevention and safety in oral healthcare throughout the world; list new resources, tools and networks to optimize compliance; identify important attributes to develop the next generation of global leadership for the optimal delivery of infection prevention and safety; and connect to a community of infection control leaders including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The Symposium will feature new infection research and scientific abstracts, a New Product Showcase, complimentary pre- and post-conference workshops, and the opportunity for OSAP members to present at a new forum called "Ignite,” a series of five-minute sessions on compliance solutions. Click on https://www.osap.org/?page=2014SympMain for details.

To better understand the powerful educational opportunities available at the OSAP Symposium, you can review the 2013 Symposium proceedings. This is an executive summary that distills three days of in-depth content into actionable information. The proceedings include the investigation of a hepatitis C virus transmission in Oklahoma and CDC's role in outbreak investigations, an international forum with in-depth discussions of facts about dental healthcare in Brazil, Mexico and Panama, and much more. The online document features key takeaways, suggestions on implementation of the topic, reminders, references, and a link to the presentation. The resource is available at www.osap.org/resource/resmgr/Symposium_2013/OSAP.2013Symp.Proceedings.pdf .

Don't miss the 2014 OSAP Symposium. Register today at https://www.osap.org/?page=2014SympMain and plan to attend June 5–8 at the Hyatt Regency Minneapolis.

DURHAM, N.C. – A snapshot of patients who required care at Duke University Hospital during this year's flu season shows that those who had not been vaccinated had severe cases and needed the most intensive treatment.

In an analysis of the first 55 patients treated for flu at the academic medical center from November 2013 through Jan. 8, 2014, Duke Medicine researchers found that only two of the 22 patients who required intensive care had been vaccinated prior to getting sick.

The findings were published online in Monday, Feb. 10, 2014, in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

"Our observations are important because they reinforce a growing body of evidence that the influenza vaccine provides protection from severe illness requiring hospitalizations," said lead author Cameron Wolfe, M.D., assistant professor of medicine at Duke. "The public health implications are important, because not only could a potentially deadly infection be avoided with a $30 shot, but costly hospitalizations could also be reduced."

Wolfe said this year's flu season was marked by hospitalizations of previously healthy young people, with a median age of 28.5 years. Among those who were hospitalized at Duke, 48 of the 55 were infected with the H1N1 virus that caused the 2009 pandemic. That outbreak also hit young adults particularly hard.

"We observed a high percentage of hospitalized patients for influenza requiring ICU level care, which appears higher than observed in our hospital during the 2009 pandemic flu season," said co-author John W. Hollingsworth, M.D., associate professor of medicine at Duke. "It remains unclear whether the high rate of ICU admissions represents a diagnosis bias or whether the severity of illness being caused by the current H1N1 virus is higher."

Of the 33 patients admitted to regular wards rather than the ICU at Duke University Hospital, only eleven had been vaccinated; most of those were immune compromised, chronically ill, or were on a medication that weakened the vaccine's protection.

The study also echoes other studies that have highlighted problems with a rapid test for influenza. Wolfe said 22 of the patients treated at Duke University Hospital had been given a rapid influenza test that came up negative for flu, but they were actually positive when tested by other methods. As a result, they had not received anti-viral medications that might have eased flu symptoms had they been taken early.

"Together, our observations during this influenza season support a high prevalence of the H1N1 virus affecting young adults and requiring ICU care, high false negative rates of rapid flu tests, and delay in starting antiviral treatment," Wolfe said. "Added to the finding of very low vaccination rates among both hospitalized and ICU admissions, our observations support previous findings that vaccination reduces the severity of disease and vaccinations should be encouraged as recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."

From keeping up a daily exercise routine to eating healthy foods and avoiding impulse purchases, self-control is hard work. Ironically, when it comes to making decisions about our bodies, a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research finds we make better health care decisions when we're feeling tired and run down.

"We proposed that people are more motivated to engage in healthful behavior when they are depleted and perceive their safety to be at stake," write authors Monika Lisjak (Erasmus University) and Angela Y. Lee (Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University).

Across five experiments, the researchers looked at how consumers use what they term "self-protective motivation" when it comes to avoiding danger. They also studied consumer preference for products that emphasize safety.

In one study, participants were asked to read a health message that both described the dangers of kidney disease and advocated the benefit of early detection. The risks associated with a family history of kidney disease were also highlighted in the message. The authors found that for people with a family history of kidney disease, those who were feeling depleted exhibited a higher likelihood of being tested than those who were feeling healthy. Participants without a family history of kidney disease expressed a similar low interest in being tested regardless of how they were feeling.

In a second study looking at product selection, participants were asked to fill out a survey on health and fitness habits either before or after working out at the gym. As a thank you gift, the participants were able to choose either sunblock or moisturizer. When participants were surveyed after working out, the likelihood of choosing sunblock was much greater than choosing the moisturizer.

"Consumers value products that emphasize safety features more when they are feeling depleted. Retailers may benefit from placing safety-related products near the checkout or running ads for security-related products at the end of the day," the authors conclude.

Overweight and obese adults who drink diet beverages consume significantly more solid-food calories—particularly from snacks—than those who drink sugary beverages. The findings highlight the challenges in using diet beverages to help control weight.

Excess weight can raise the risk for type 2 and gestational diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and other health problems. But maintaining a healthy weight is difficult for many people. Body weight reflects a complicated balance between the amount of calories consumed and the amount of energy used by the body.

Diet beverage use has skyrocketed in recent decades. It’s now a common weight control strategy. It might make sense to think that diet beverages would help you lose weight due to their lack of calories. But the body’s mechanisms for maintaining weight are subtle and complex. Studies into how diet beverages affect weight control have found conflicting results.

To gain a better understanding of the relationship between diet beverage consumption and caloric intake, a research team led by Dr. Sara N. Bleich at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health examined patterns of food and beverage consumption. They used data collected between 1999 and 2010 in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), a periodic survey of the health and habits of the U.S. population by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The analysis was funded by NIH’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI).

The researchers studied almost 24,000 adults, age 20 and older, who reported all the food and beverages they had consumed in a previous 24-hour period. Results appeared online in the American Journal of Public Health on January 16, 2014.

The team found that 11% of healthy-weight, 19% of overweight, and 22% of obese adults drank diet beverages. Diet drinks appeared to help healthy-weight adults maintain their weight. These adults consumed less food and significantly fewer total calories on a typical day than did healthy-weight adults who drank sugared drinks.

The total calories consumed by overweight and obese adults who drank diet beverages, however, were similar to that of those who drank sugary beverages. Heavier adults who drank diet beverages tended to eat more calories in the form of solid food. Overweight and obese adults who drank diet beverages consumed 88 and 194 more calories from solid foods per day, respectively, than those who drank sugared beverages.

To understand these differences in solid-food intake, the scientists took a closer look at patterns of solid-food consumption. Notably, obese adults who consumed diet drinks ate significantly more snacks than those who had sugared drinks. Those who drank diet beverages consumed 131 calories per day in salty snacks and 243 in sweet snacks, compared to 107 and 213, respectively, for obese adults who drank sugared drinks.

“The results of our study suggest that overweight and obese adults looking to lose or maintain their weight—who have already made the switch from sugary to diet beverages—may need to look carefully at other components of their solid-food diet, particularly sweet snacks, to potentially identify areas for modification,” Bleich says.

Controlled studies would be needed to confirm these results. Nevertheless, the research highlights the need for heavier adults who drink diet beverages to closely monitor their food intake.

—by Harrison Wein, Ph.D.

(HealthDay News) -- For the third year in a row, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is poised to deliver a bold, no-holds-barred, anti-tobacco message to the American public.

To read more, click here.

INTELIHEALTH -- E-mailed referrals to a quit-smoking website are more effective than paper referrals, a new study suggests. The National Dental PBRN Collaborative Group did the study.

To read the full article, please click here to the InteliHealth Web site.

A free AADOM Webinar called OSHA Made Easy: Hazard Communication/Globally Harmonized System (GHS) & Subparts is available Wednesday at 1 pm EST. It's presented by Karson L. Carpenter, sponsored by Henry Schein, and approved for 1 credit toward the AADOM's fellowship program.

OSHA requirements include an annual retraining session for all employees. This course will help fulfill these requirements and will update participants on the latest from OSHA, including the Globally Harmonized System (GHS) for Hazard Communication.

Course Learning Objectives:

-Fulfill OSHA annual training requirements

-Recognize and apply hazard communication/chemical safety requirements in the workplace

-Describe electrical safety and ionizing radiation safety in the workplace

Click here to register.

Efforts to lower the incidence of dangerous infections acquired by patients in the hospital or other care settings and a federal strategy to improve those activities are the subject of a series of articles published by the journal Medical Care.

Researchers found that a federally sponsored plan to lower health care-acquired infections was successful in addressing the challenges of prioritizing and coordinating strategies. In addition, the plan has been associated with reductions in the rates of health care-associated infection rates, with progress made toward most targets where data are available.

"Much progress has been made in raising awareness of and developing strategies for curbing the life-threatening infections that strike patients too often when they are receiving medical care," said Dr. Katherine Kahn, a leader of the project who is a professor of medicine at the Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and a senior natural scientist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "In order to make even more progress, we need to build our systems of care to be safer within and across hospitals, nursing homes, clinics and community settings."

Infections that strike patients are one of the most preventable leading causes of death in the United States. For example, patients may develop blood infections or infections in wound sites while undergoing treatments for serious illnesses.

The complex nature of modern medicine has made it difficult to control health care-associated infections. For example, widespread use of antibiotics can lead to increased antimicrobial resistance and invasive medical procedures such as the use of catheters can compromise the body's natural defenses. Although conventional wisdom had been that health care-associated infections were an expected complication of illness, a paradigm shift occurred as evidence showed that many health care-associated infections are preventable.

The U.S. Department of Health and Humans Services in 2009 released a national plan aimed at preventing the infections, outlining numerous strategies to both combat the problem and improve understanding of the infections.

Researchers from RAND and the research group IMPAQ performed an evaluation of the first three years of the National Action Plan to Prevent Health Care-Associated Infections: Road Map to Elimination, reviewing the structure of the effort as well as the results thus far. Their findings are reported in a series of articles published as a supplement to the February edition of the journal Medical Care.

The strategy focuses on evidence-based strategies, such as standardizing the use of hand-washing by health providers and considering both benefits and risks when deciding about the use and duration of treatments such as antibiotics and uses of devices that can help patients heal, but also can compromise the body's natural defenses.

Most of the prevention initiatives have focused on hospital settings, but the action plan has focused attention on efforts in other care settings such as outpatient surgery centers, kidney dialysis centers, and long-term care facilities. Researchers say these efforts have likely contributed to stakeholders' reported perceptions of greater momentum in adoption of strategies to prevent health care-acquired infections.

The national plan has generated clinical, political and financial support for the complex efforts required to eliminate health care-associated infections across federal, regional, state, and local settings. Despite an influx of federal funding to support elimination of health care-acquired infections, researchers say that ongoing dedicated resources will be required to maintain momentum and sustain efforts made to date.

Efforts to curb infections need to continue to be integrated into the ever-expanding field of health information technology and more-robust efforts are needed to improve the basic scientific understanding of hospital-acquired infections, according to the evaluation.

"Continuing efforts will be required to track progress in addressing the most pervasive health care-associated infections, improve understanding of the means of transmission and find new ways to address the problem," said James. B. Battles, a project leader and senior service fellow for patient safety and medical errors with the Center for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety at the federal Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality.

Because future funding for efforts to further reduce hospital-acquired infections is unclear, researchers say it may be best to incorporate the efforts into the overall movement to improve patient safety.

"Embedding the prevention of health care-associated infections in daily work routines and the culture of health care organizations not only builds normative infrastructure, but also improves the likelihood that prevention practices will be sustained and can be used to support accountability and incentives," said Peter Mendel, another project leader and a social scientist at RAND.

Support for the project was provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Humans Services.

RAND Health is the nation's largest independent health policy research program, with a broad research portfolio that focuses on health care costs, quality and public health preparedness, among other topics.