this thread has ben dormant for some time and this article does noot exactly fit the heading .
i think it is worthwhile remembering that just being in a hospital can be dangerous to your health - even if you are really quite healthy .
hbg
Quote:Hey, doc, wash your hands
Patients shouldn't be shy about asking providers to hit the sink, experts say
By JoNel Aleccia
Health writer
updated 7:31 a.m. ET, Fri., Jan. 25, 2008
It's a question no hospital patient should have to ask: "Hey, doc, did you wash your hands?" At best, hospital staffers wash adequately about half the time, repeated studies show. And some hospitals post hand hygiene rates as low as 20 percent when they start tracking the problem, said Maryanne McGuckin, a former University of Pennsylvania public health researcher who has spent her career trying to boost hand hygiene in hospitals and other health-care settings.
"This isn't magic. It's very clear what you need to do," McGuckin said. Workers' reasons for not washing range from simple forgetfulness to being too busy to pause between patients. Others rely on gloves, forgetting that they need to scrub before donning them. And a few doctors and other health workers seem to believe they're immune to basic rules of sanitation.
National guidelines say they're supposed to use alcohol-based hand rubs or soap and warm water for at least 15 seconds before and after every direct contact with a patient, with excretions, or with contaminated surfaces or objects. Too often, however, they don't.
"It's an ever-present conundrum," said Diane Waldo, director of quality and clinical services with the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems, which recently launched a hand hygiene program, one of several in the nation. "Everybody learns it and understands it, but compliance and accountability are another thing."
There's no question that improved hand hygiene reduces hospital infections, said Boyce. It's a fact doctors have known since 1846, when Vienna's Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis halted patient deaths by directing his medical students to wash up between the pathology lab and the maternity ward.
Recent research has reiterated the connection, including an August study in the journal Pediatrics that showed that boosting hygiene rates cut hospital-acquired infections by 60 percent in more than 1,000 tiny newborns at a children's hospital in Switzerland.
Even in that study, however, hygiene compliance rose only from 42 percent to 55 percent, the authors said.
For Morales, the Portland patient who piped up, the idea that hospital workers wash their hands only about half the time is astounding.
"That's something you just expect a doctor or a nurse to do," said Morales, who learned she had leukemia after delivering her fourth child this month.
Will they be offended?
It never would have occurred to her to ask a hospital worker to wash, but St. Vincent's officials who joined a state hospital hand hygiene project last summer made it clear with pamphlets, posters and personal invitations that Morales should feel free to speak up.
Overcoming fears of insulting staff can be a chief challenge, especially among elderly patients, said Dr. Woodruff English, the epidemiologist at St. Vincent's.
"It's a generational thing. We all have our cultural values and the older population is generally respectful of rules and authority," he said.
McGuckin's research shows that 80 percent of patients will speak up if they're invited, and that when they do, hygiene can improve by as much as 56 percent within weeks. How health-care workers react when they're reminded about hand hygiene is crucial.
When Kaiser Permanente, one of the nation's largest health-care providers, started a hand hygiene program in 2001, some staff members, especially doctors, resented the effort, noted Dr. Steve Parodi, the agency's infectious disease chief and Sue Barnes, a registered nurse and national safety manager.
source :
DOC-NURSE WASH YOUR HANDS !
