According to the study, patients who underwent invasive surgery during their initial hospitalization were more likely to pick up a secondary infection while in the hospital, and elective surgery patients were at even higher risk of nosocomial infection. The researchers estimated that 290,000 patients in U.S. hospitals picked up sepsis, or blood poisoning, during their hospitalization in 2006, and 200,000 developed pneumonia.
my argument is that there are things to consider in medical care, for example if the stupid patient does not take their medicine at home they come back and need $5,000 worth of new insurance costs - who pays? It is insurance either Blue Cross or Medicare. Who should pay? Now if the hospital sends out a care giver and they spend $5,000 a month for an aide to look at twenty or thirty people who saves... people who might have to pay the government or the rising costs of insurance - you and ME!! Do you think every person that leaves the hospital is of such a sound mind that they will not forget some instructions?
MRSA is a infection that some patients have after surgery. Guess what? MRSA is endemic in the population, so they are bringing the infection into the hospital . Hospitals are doing MRSA swabs on patients who are in the ICU, and from what I have seen, a lot of them are positive which means they have MRSA prior to admission. If need be, they will swab everyone on admission to prevent a Medicare penalty. However, that is an additional cost. Some infections are brought in from the community which causes post op problems.
Infections can be from a number of things- such as poor surgical technique. That is not common.Another huge,huge, risk item is obesity. Obese patients have a high risk of infection . Personally, if I were a surgeon I would not operate on an obese patient.Some of them are now refusing, because it affects their Medicare complication rating. Too bad, so sad.Pneumonia can be from a number of factors, one being poor mobility after major surgery, or lowered immune system. I can force a patient kicking and screaming out of bed twice my shift, but that does not prevent them from pneumonia if they are medically fragile. That is a side effect of hospitalization and surgery. There is no way to ever change that statistic, unless you only admit young people 30-50 years old in your hospital.
I do not want to spend $5000 a month on a patient when there is family. That is the problem with society. Dump the care of your elderly parents on the government, and have them pick up the tab. I see it every day. For a forum such as FR- I see people here expouse freedom from government, , self determination, yet they act like whiney liberals when they want a government handout.
And no, I should not have to pay for social items out of my huge Medicare withdrawal from my paycheck. Especially when a lot of Medicare patients have more assests than I do. They can pay for their own aide.