Biggest Breakthrough in Healthcare

Creators Syndicate ^ | May 7, 2013 | Betsy McCaughey

[jazusamo]

A 180-degree change in how doctors and hospital administrators think about germs is likely to almost eliminate the biggest risk of being hospitalized: getting an infection.

Until now, doctors and hospital administrators routinely dismissed questions about cleanliness by saying "germs are everywhere." But at last week's meeting of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiologists of America in Atlanta, the focus was on making patients' rooms germ-free by testing for bacteria after cleaning and using ultra-violet light and room fogging machines.

Finally, the medical community is acknowledging that inadequately cleaned rooms and equipment are to blame for infections and doing something about it. "There's been a complete turnaround," says Dr. Curtis Donskey from the Cleveland Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

In 1970, when antibiotics cured most hospital infections, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Hospital Association advised hospitals to stop testing surfaces for bacteria. Visually clean was enough, even though bacteria are invisible.

To this day, most hospitals don't test, even in operating rooms, and neither does the Joint Commission that accredits U.S. hospitals. Meat processing plants get a more rigorous inspection for cleanliness.

Patients have no control over which room they're assigned, but it's the biggest predictor of who picks up a hospital germ such as VRE (vancomycin-resisitant Enterococcus), according to Tufts University researchers. A germ from one patient lingers on a bedrail or other object for even two weeks and then is picked up on the hands of a doctor treating another patient — a deadly chain reaction. Even when doctors and nurses clean their hands, they become re-contaminated seconds after washing — as soon as they touch a keyboard, bedrail or other bacteria-laden object.

[momincombatboots]

I frequently work in Microbiology... loaded with pathogenic stuff. My motto, while I am in good health.. what doesn’t kill me, only makes me more immune. I am more worried about genetically mod food than pathogens. If I get sick, lowering my immunity, I stay home. I am mindful of Hepatitis C however... very diligent around potential blood exposure incidences. During winter, my hands get pretty dry from washing. I agree with you about sanitizer freaks I know, sickly folks. It’s hard for me to decide which came first, the sickliness or the sanitizer baths.

[Madam Theophilus]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9762689/Fit-brass-fixtures-to-cut-superbugs-say-scientists.html

https://www.ameslab.gov/node/2986

Or an alternative is switching the type of metal used in all commonly touched fixtures within the hospital.

[fabian]

nope...here is the number one healthcare breakthrough easily!
www.copingstrategiescd.com Works to help cure all disEASE. Fact.

[jazusamo]

Thanks, that explains it and it’s criminal, IMHO.

[txrefugee]

In most states, “immigrants” are employed to clean patient rooms in a haphazard fashion. No wonder hospitals are such dangerous places that many patients would have been better staying at home.

[wordsofearnest]

That used to be called “streetcar immunity”.

[maine-iac7]

bout freaking time -

and if you GET MRSA form a dr’s office - they will cut you lose - other than giving y ou an antibiotic -= you’re on your own,

Thank God for the internet

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Apparently they did not get the memo. If you do a survey of most peoples internal flora, you will likely find several common varieties of antibiotic resistant bacteria already dwelling within them, quite harmlessly.

You can clean their room all day and beyond reasonable hygiene, it will be utterly meaningless to their odds of getting an infection.

However, if you give people antibiotics inappropriately, or just through bad luck, it may kill off enough of their healthy intestinal flora that the antibiotic resistant bacteria can have a population explosion, a bloom.

And while a small amount of these bacteria are not harmful, a large amount can be very dangerous, destructive, or even deadly.

A good way to avoid this problem is by taking probiotics, good bacteria, in between times you take antibiotics. For example, if you take antibiotics three times a day, at 6am, noon, and 6pm, you take the probiotics at 9am, 3pm, and at bedtime, to restore your healthy flora damaged by the antibiotics.

The probiotics may also help to inhibit the infection the antibiotics are being taken for, so are never a bad thing.