Hipaa and mrsa in the workplace?

I work in a nursing home in the laundry dept. Lately when a resident aquires MRSA we are the last to know. They don't tell us usually we find out on our own and I just want to know if this is truly following hippas guidelines or if they are being a little uptight. I would've thought we had the right to know since we have contact with the resident's clothing and sometimes the resident.

HIPPA states that the need to know is the guidline for disclosure of information. You have a need to know. That is as far as HIPPA takes it. You will be more intrested in what the CDC, Infectious desease Doctor for the county (each county has one MD paid to over see all of this) and OSHA have to say about the facility's failure to disclose this information to their workers. You can contact them your self directly. The CDC will be able to give you the numbers in your area.
I would, and do consider all of my patients to be contagious. MRSA is out in the community and is wide spread as well as VRE (Vancomycin Resistant E-Coli). The combination of the two are a death sentince. Universal percautions are a must for all care givers! Mask, gloves and gown when handling soiled linen (that is any used linen).
Personally I am fed up with the way the hospitals handle this epidemic! It is puting every one at risk. Watch the house keepers in the hospitals and convelecent hospitals... They will use the same mop from an Isolation room to a clean room every time, sperdding the bacteria throughout the facility. Then you see visitors with children allowing them to play on the floor or there toys on the floor and of course the hands go to their faces!
Do not wear your clothes or shoes into your home after work. Change at work and bag your work clothes. Straight to the washer with hot water and bleach. I use 2 capfulls of cavicide (aquired from work) in each load of work clothes as well.
We all have to do our part and sometimes it means going up aginist our employers. Good luck.

The nursing staff are required to double bag all linen, with mrsa, and it is not a hippa issue. the double bagging is a water soluble bag then in a yellow bag. You make a small tear in the yellow bag and put everything in the washer, not touching any of the linen.

MRSA is transmitted through blood. Be very careful and why aren't you wearing gloves at all times?

I also work in a nursing home in the laundry,dietary,nursing and housekeeping dept.The supervisor of the laundry dept. usually tells us who is on isolation but also when certain residents develope these diseases there is usually an isolation bin outside their door with special bags,gowns,face masks,etc.. Since I also work in the nursing dept. I find things out a little sooner than the laund. and hsk. dept. but soon as I know these things I inform my co-workers. As far as washing the clothes of residents with certain types of diseases their linen will come back to the laundry room in an isolation bag and of course that will get washed separately but other than that I use universal precautions at all times in all depts. Such as in the laund. dept. I have my gloves on that comes to the middle of my arm,a plastic apron to protect your clothes and a face mask(covering your nose and mouth) in dietary dept. I wear a hair net,a plastic apron,latex gloves when dealing with the food and if I leave out of the kitchen I take my apron off and upon entering put another one back on,in the nursing dept.,you have to put on a fresh pair of gloves for each resident,there is a smock you can wear to protect your clothes and it depends on what type of resident you have in order for you to use face masks and a gown,and in the hsk. dept. I have my gloves(a fresh pair for each room) a smock over my clothes and several cleaning towels for the sink,toilet and dusting and once I get through cleaning that room those used towels get put in a special container and I start off with clean towels for the next room. Working in a nursing home we deal with so much contamination and all we can do is use universal precautions with everything and keep up with our free immunization shots the work place offers us. It is part of HIPPA guidelines that we be informed but I stopped waiting on certain people to tell me what is going on,so I take it upon myself to find out what I need to know and share the information with my co-workers.