37.114.101    DEFINITIONS

Unless otherwise indicated, the following definitions apply throughout this chapter:

(1) "Case" means a person who is confirmed or suspected to have a reportable disease or condition as listed in ARM 37.114.203.

(2) "Communicable disease" means an illness due or suspected to be due to a specific infectious agent or its toxic products, which results from transmission of that agent or its products to a susceptible host, directly or indirectly.

(3) "Contact" means a person or animal that may have had an opportunity to acquire an infection due to the contact's association with a suspected or confirmed infected person or animal or a contaminated environment.

(4) "Contamination" means the presence of a disease-causing agent upon a living body surface or within or upon any inanimate article or substance.

(5) "Control of Communicable Diseases Manual" means the "Control of Communicable Diseases Manual, An Official Report of the American Public Health Association," 20th edition, 2015.

(6) "Department" means the Department of Public Health and Human Services.

(7) "Directly observed therapy (DOT)" means the method whereby a trained health-care worker or another trained designated person watches a patient swallow each dose of antituberculosis medication and documents it. DOT can include electronic directly observed therapy (eDOT) utilizing a video conferencing application only with express permission from the state TB program.

(8) "2007 Guideline for Isolation Precautions: Preventing Transmission of Infectious Agents in Healthcare Settings" means the guideline published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in association with the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee.

(9) "Form" means a paper form or electronically submitted information consisting of data elements necessary to implement effective surveillance, investigation, or mitigation of reportable diseases and outbreaks.

(10) "Health care" means health care as defined in 50-16-504, MCA.

(11) "Health care facility" is a facility as defined in 50-5-101, MCA.

(12) "Health care provider" means a health care provider as defined in 50-16-504, MCA.

(13) "HIV infection" means infection with the human immunodeficiency virus.

(14) "Household contact" is a person or animal living within the household of an infected person.

(15) "Infected person" means a person who harbors an infectious agent whether or not illness is currently discernible.

(16) "Infection" means the entry and development or multiplication of an infectious agent in the body of man or animals.

(17) "Infection control precautions" means those measures necessary to prevent the transmission of disease from an infected person to another person, taking into consideration the specific suspected or confirmed communicable disease and the specific circumstances of the case. The infection control precautions required for a case admitted to a hospital or other health care facility are those measures identified as isolation precautions applicable to the specific disease in the "2007 Guideline for Isolation Precautions: Preventing Transmission of Infectious Agents in Healthcare Settings" adopted in ARM 37.114.105. The infection control precautions required for a case not admitted to a hospital or other health care facility are those measures identified as methods of control applicable to the specific disease in the "Control of Communicable Diseases Manual, An Official Report of the American Public Health Association", 20th edition, 2015, adopted in ARM 37.114.105. Infection control precautions are required, as stated in this rule, whether or not the person is subject to isolation.

(18) "Infectious agent" means an organism including virus, rickettsia, bacteria, fungus, protozoan, prion, or helminth that is capable of producing an infection or infectious disease.

(19) "Infectious disease" means a clinically manifest disease of man or animals resulting from an infection.

(20) "Infectious person" means a person from whom another person may acquire an infectious agent by touch or proximity.

(21) "Isolation" means separation during the period of communicability of an infected or probably infected person from other persons, in places and under conditions approved by the department or local health officer and with observance of all applicable infection control precautions.

(22) "Laboratory" means any facility or other area used by microbiological, serological, chemical, hematological, immunohematological, molecular, biophysical, cytological, pathological or other examinations of human body fluids, secretions, excretions, or excised or exfoliated tissues, for the purpose of providing information for the diagnosis, prevention or treatment of any human disease or impairment, for the assessment of human health.

(23) "Laboratory Professional" means any person who supervises or works in a laboratory.

(24) "Local health officer" means a county, city, city-county, or district health officer appointed by a local board of health. As used in these rules, the term will include the authorized representative of a local health officer.

(25) "Multidrug-Resistant Organisms (MDRO)" means microorganisms, predominantly bacteria, that are resistant to one or more classes of antimicrobial agents.

(26) "Outbreak" means the occurrence of more cases of a disease than would normally be expected in a specific place or group of people over a given period of time.

(27) "Physician" means a person licensed to practice medicine in any jurisdiction in the United States or Canada.

(28) "Potential outbreak" means the presence or suspected presence of a communicable disease in a population where the number of susceptible persons and the mode of transmission of the disease may cause further transmission of that disease.

(29) "Quarantine" means those measures required by a local health officer or the department to prevent transmission of disease to or by those individuals who have been or are otherwise likely to be in contact with an individual with a communicable disease.

(30) "Reportable disease" means any disease, the occurrence or suspected occurrence of which is required to be reported by ARM 37.114.203.

(31) "Sensitive occupation" means an occupation described in ARM 37.114.301.

(32) "Sexually transmitted disease" means human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, syphilis, gonorrhea, chancroid, lymphogranuloma venereum, granuloma inguinale, or all chlamydia trachomatis infections including chlamydial genital infections.

(33) "Sexually Transmitted Diseases Treatment Guidelines, 2015" means the guidelines published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

(34) "Surveillance" means scrutiny of all aspects of occurrence and transmission of a disease that are pertinent to effective control.

(35) "Susceptible" means having insufficient resistance against a disease and likely to contract the disease if exposed.

(36) "Toxic Metals" means individual metals and metal compounds that may negatively affect an individual's health and shall include arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury for the purposes of these rules.

 

History: 50-1-202, 50-2-116, 50-17-103, MCA; IMP, 50-1-202, 50-17-103, 50-18-101, MCA; NEW, 1980 MAR p. 1579, Eff. 6/13/80; AMD, 1987 MAR p. 2147, Eff. 11/28/87; AMD, 1995 MAR p. 1127, Eff. 6/30/95; AMD, 1998 MAR p. 2493, Eff. 9/11/98; AMD, 2000 MAR p. 2986, Eff. 9/22/00; TRANS, from DHES, 2002 MAR p. 913; AMD, 2006 MAR p. 2112, Eff. 9/8/06; AMD, 2013 MAR p. 967, Eff. 6/7/13; AMD, 2017 MAR p. 343, Eff. 3/25/17; AMD, 2019 MAR p. 1745, Eff. 1/1/20.