© healthrender.com
While the debate rages over medical marijuana in America, approximately 200 Americans die daily in U.S. hospitals, according to a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The CDC report found that preventable healthcare-associated infections in hospitals kill 75,000 patients per year, reports AFP.
Most of these fatal infections could be easily avoided if only healthcare professionals simply practiced common hygiene, says the report, which surveyed 181 hospitals in 2011.
The study, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found 721,800 infections happened in 648,000 hospital patients.
"The most advanced medical care won't work if clinicians don't prevent infections through basic things such as regular hand hygiene," said CDC Director Tom Frieden in a statement.
"It's sobering to realize that despite all those efforts we still have this level of problem," Dr. Brad Spielberg, of the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, told NPR. "And it won't be an easy fix. If we depend on changing human behavior as the only implementation tool to prevent infections, we're going to plateau."
While the U.S. medical community is not open to publishing all information about infections, people can get some information about infection rates in specific hospitals at Medicare.gov.
"Most of these fatal infections could be easily avoided if only healthcare professionals simply practiced common hygiene, says the report, which surveyed 181 hospitals in 2011."
That would depend how easy it is to do (availability and access) and what is considered 'common'.
Here in Australia we have this:
[Link]
And many hospitals use and have attached to walls and beds this product, since not many workers can afford the time or damage to hands that physically washing with soap and water will do:
[Link]
Visitors and patients can use it too if they like, and some places encourage it.
Does the US have an equivalent, or does it just blame the workers for not doing a process that management is to 'cheap' to subscribe to and enable? It certainly is cheaper to blame everyone else, than take responsibility and initiate change for a good idea. And the system in Australia is vastly different from other countries.