Hospital-Acquired Infections

Despite her fear of a hospital-acquired infection, a friend recently underwent required rotator cuff surgery. She is doing well in the rehabilitation phase of her treatment, and did not experience a nocosomial infection. In preparing for the surgery, she expressed this fear to family members and friends who stayed in the hospital with her around the clock. After admission, there was an immediate confrontation between a family member and a nurse who did not use the hand-washing facilities in the hospital room before performing her examination, and the nurse never did wash her hands. This pattern repeated throughout the hospital stay with variations such as a nurse arriving in the room already gloved, and nurses who did not wash but did put on a non-sterile glove before an examination. Pointing out their lack of hygiene did not change the nurses' behavior.

My friends fears arose from reports of hospital- and community-acquired infections in the popular press, and there is a factual basis for her concern. Only today a University of Virginia expert, Dr. William A. Petri, Jr., made himself available for interviews via Medical News Today on the subject of rising hospital-acquired infections with Clostridium difficile, presently estimated at 500,000 annually. Earlier this year Emma Hitt of Medscape Medical News reported the findings of Dr. Becky Miller. This article is worth reading in its entirety. Various news sources have reported on methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infections, but these are actually on the decline and have been surpassed by C. difficile, which is much more difficult to control. Dr. Robert Orenstein reported procedural success stating, "- it required putting together a committed team and emphasizing our goal of improving patient outcomes." The committed team was obviously lacking during my friend's hospital stay, and her good outcome occurred despite the fact that the nurses ignored infection-control procedures and the people who insisted that they use them.