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Powerful Partnerships Take On Hospital Infections
By:Ned Gonzalez
The statistics are staggering. The end result often is heartbreaking; but patient safety advocates say there is hope. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that each year more than two million patients suffer and more than 90,000 of them actually die from hospital acquired infections. In addition, the CDC estimates that these infections cost more than $5 billion annually.
Hit hard by the human and financial costs of this national crisis, the industry is joining forces with government and patients to help to turn the tide. To help combat this deadly problem, federal, state and local governments, hospitals, and healthcare manufacturers are teaming up on numerous national patient safety initiatives that are making significant strides for patient safety.
Major initiatives such as the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s (IHI) 100,000 Lives Campaign and the Surgical Care Improvement Project (SCIP) are forming powerful partnerships to help reduce risk. “One of the most exciting things about the SCIP project is that we are bringing together the partnership of the governmental agencies that have a role and also the healthcare organizations and experts across our country,” says Julie Gerberding, M.D., director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “By working in partnership with the people on the frontline of care, we can come up with better solutions and we can mobilize to make these solutions lead to better patient outcomes much more quickly.”
According to patient safety advocates, such as The Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths, patients and their families can also take an active role by doing the following:
* Ask that hospital staff clean their hands before they treat you.
* Before your doctor uses a stethoscope, ask the doctor to sanitize it.
* Ask visitors to clean their hands and avoid sitting on your bed.
* Do not shave the surgical site – ask the hospital to use clippers because razors can cause nicks in the skin where bacteria can enter.
Medical product manufacturers are also taking part by developing cutting edge products to help reduce risk. Illinois-based Medline Industries, Inc., is one of the companies actively involved in the manufacturing and distribution of these advanced medical products. Following the 1999 Institute of Medicine report “To Err is Human,” we began a concerted effort to bring products to market that focus on patient safety and infection control,” says Medline President Andy Mills. “We are actively participating in the national patient safety initiatives because as a medical products manufacturer, it is our responsibility to contribute to reducing the risk for infection.”
Mills points out that Medline’s first breakthrough in this area targets what many experts believe is a major contributing problem – lack of proper hand hygiene. Specially coated with pure aloe, Aloetouch gloves are designed to help to sooth and hydrate skin. Researchers have long believed that raw chapped skin can be a major barrier to hand hygiene.
“Clinicians want to do what is right. But it makes sense, if your hands hurt, you are less likely to be washing and sanitizing them as frequently as perhaps you should be,” says Alecia Cooper, RN, BSN, MBA, CNOR. “Research shows that the gloves do help to keep the skin moist and hydrated, so hopefully these gloves help clinicians follow proper hand hygiene protocol.”
The manufacturer was also recently involved in a nine-hospital patient safety study in Ohio. As part of the study, participants designed a medical drape that they believed would help to reduce central line bloodstream infections – (according to the CDC this is one of the leading causes of hospital acquired infections). The group asked Medline to help further develop and specially manufacture the drape. The study won national acclaim for nearly eradicating central line infections by lowering their number of this type of infection by more than 50 percent in less than a year.
"This project demonstrated how well healthcare works when we all work together -- administrators, clinicians, physicians and manufacturers -- helping us to reach our goal of improved patient safety and improved outcomes " says Debbie Hayes, vice president, patient care services and chief nursing officer at The Christ Hospital "We were so pleased that Medline was willing to work with us and custom make a full body drape that would help us reach our goals and significantly reduce our infections. This kind of collaboration is great news for patients."
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Article keywords: Powerful Partnerships Take On Hospital Infections
Article Source: http://www.articles2k.com
For more information about what’s being done to battle hospital-borne infections, log on to www.cdc.gov and www.medline.com. - ARA
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