- Hello Jeff - It is pretty sad when hospitals have to
ENFORCE hand-washing among employees.
-
- One would think that people who work in hospitals would
already understand the need to wash hands. (Especially nurses and doctors)
What are they learning in medical or nursing schools?)
-
- Patty
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- US Hospitals Urged To Strictly Enforce Hand-Washing
- By Carolyn Lochhead - Chronicle Washington Bureau
- San Francisco Chronicle
- 9-11-9
-
- WASHINGTON -- The president
of a leading medical standards organization announced a new program Thursday
that is designed to improve health care safety practices, starting with
a rigorous approach toward hand-washing by hospital staffers.
-
- Hand-washing failures contribute to infections linked
to health care that kill almost 100,000 Americans a year and cost U.S.
hospitals $4 billion to $29 billion a year to combat, said Dr. Mark Chassin,
who leads the Joint Commission, which sets standards and accredits hospitals
and health care organizations.
-
- Chassin's announcement came after Hearst Newspapers published
the results of an investigation, "Dead by Mistake," which reported
that 247 people die every day in the United States from infections contracted
in hospitals.
-
- The Joint Commission's new program, the Center for Transforming
Health Care, is funded by hospitals and other large health care providers.
-
- Eight leading hospitals and health systems, including
Cedars-Sinai Health System in Los Angeles, have volunteered to address
hand-washing failures as a critical patient safety problem, according to
Chassin's announcement.
-
- Hand-washing problems include soaps or alcohol-based
hand rubs that are not convenient for caregivers to use and faulty data
that lull facilities into thinking hand-washing is occurring more often
than it is.
-
- The hospitals using the center's measurement methods
consistently found on average that caregivers washed their hands less than
50 percent of the time when they should, according to the center.
-
- Solutions being tested include holding everyone accountable
and responsible - doctors, nurses, food service staff, housekeepers, chaplains,
technicians and therapists.
-
- http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/11/MNDF19L7VT.DTL
-
-
- Patricia A. Doyle DVM, PhD Bus Admin, Tropical Agricultural
Economics Univ of West Indies Please visit my "Emerging Diseases"
message board at: http://www.emergingdisease.org/phpbb/index.php Also
my new website: http://drpdoyle.tripod.com/ Zhan le Devlesa tai
sastimasa Go with God and in Good Health
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