Hospital Infections: Take Matters into Your Own Hands

October 20th, 2009. By janem

Hospital infections are on the rise, for numerous reasons. It’s a no-brainer that hospital cleanliness and low infection rates are selected most often (by 74 percent of patients) as an important factor when choosing a hospital. And you’ll likely want to get out and recover at home sooner than later.

According to healthcare experts in the UK, a second wave of swine flu pandemic could increase hospital admissions, which could lead to a rise in hospital infections, particularly MRSA. The Department of Health advises early discharge of patients from hospital to try and prevent a rise in the killer superbug: research has shown that when a hospital’s bed occupancy rate exceeds 90 per cent, MRSA rates can be as much as 40 per cent above average.

In the US, researchers have found more MRSA infections associated with H1N1 flu.

Two fatal infections occurred recently in Buffalo, NY: the victims, a 9-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy, arrived at ER several days after being seen for mild flu symptoms. Both children died of necrotizing pneumonia, one 11 days after being hospitalized and one after 3 days.

Another recent study has shown that hospital workers who see many patients in the course of a day, such as radiologists or physical therapists, may play a disproportionate role in spreading dangerous hospital-acquired infections.

As a patient, you can take some measures, such as safe hand-washing procedures, into your own hands.

“Hospitalized patients shouldn’t be shy about asking the health-care workers who come in contact with them to follow infection control guidelines,” said Dr. Zachary Rubin, an epidemiologist at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center and Orthopaedic Hospital in Santa Monica. Some hospitals are more stringent than others: they have signs posted in patient rooms asking “Did your health-care worker wash his hands?” to make patients more aware of the importance of hand washing.

“If a patient is concerned [about lack of hygiene from a health-care worker], he can always talk to the head nurse or charge nurse,” Rubin said, as well as the hospital’s patient advocate or his own physician.

If your concerns aren’t addressed immediately, you might also want to seek legal help.

Hospital Infection Statistics

* According to the World Health Organization (WHO), at any point in time, 1.4 million people worldwide suffer from infections acquired in hospitals.
* A Centers for Disease Control (CDC) report published in March-April 2007 estimated the number of U.S. deaths from healthcare asociated infections in 2002 at 98,987.
* Hospital-acquired infection (HRI) often leads to lengthening hospitalization, increasing the likelihood of readmission, and adding sizably to the cost of care per patient.
* Financially, hospital infections represent an estimated annual impact of $6.7 billion to healthcare facilities, but the human cost is even higher.

And last but definitely not least:

* According to Dr. Mark Chassin, who leads the Joint Commission, the lack of hand-washing contributes to infections linked to hospital care that kill almost 100,000 Americans a year. (In September, The Joint Commission launched the Center for Transforming Healthcare, whose first initiative is tackling hand washing failures that contribute to health care-associated infections.)

This was posted on Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 at 2:32 pm and is filed under Emerging Issues . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.