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Category Archives: nosocomial

April 30, 2010

A good start?

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I happened to notice today that the WHO has posted an update to its campaign Save Lives: Clean Your Hands, which aims to get 10,000 hospitals around the world to sign on — by May 5, 2010, which is next week — to a global commitment to improved hand hygiene in hospitals. As of last week, [...]

Written by Maryn McKenna

Also posted in WHO, hand hygiene

April 21, 2010

Catching up on MRSA news (not about me)

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Constant readers: I’m looking forward to having the breathing space to get back to in-depth blogging. Meanwhile, though, news is zipping by — so here’s a quick list of recent things worth reading. “Cows on Drugs” — a superb history of the 30-year-old fight to get unnecessary antibiotics out of food animals. Note, written by a [...]

Written by Maryn McKenna

Also posted in EPA, FDA, SHEA, ST 398, animals, antibacterial, food, hospitals

February 3, 2010

Recommending: Consumer Reports on hospital infections

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Constant readers, the magazine Consumer Reports has done an extended, state-by-state analysis of which hospitals do well, or very badly, in preventing one important category of infections: central line-associated bloodstream infections, or CLABSIs (pronounced klab-sees). It’s a comprehensive package in easily understandable language. It’s based on the state reporting data that some activists have managed [...]

Written by Maryn McKenna

Also posted in hospitals, infection control, medical errors

January 22, 2010

MRSA in the journal Science – spread, outbreaks and an argument for active surveillance

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I have a story tonight at CIDRAP about a paper published this evening in the journal Science. To respect fair use and make sure my colleagues get clicks, I just quote the story here — but then I want to talk about why I think it’s such an important study. A multi-national team of researchers [...]

Written by Maryn McKenna

Also posted in hospitals, infection control, international, surveillance

December 28, 2009

One surgical infection with MRSA: $61,000

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From a multi-state, public-private research team — Duke University, Wayne State University, and the Durham, NC VA — comes a precise and alarming calculation of MRSA’s costs in hospitals: For one post-surgery infection, $61,681. The group compared the course, costs and final outcome of three matched groups of patients from one tertiary-care center and six community [...]

Written by Maryn McKenna

Also posted in MRSA, MSSA, hospitals, infection control, surgery

December 10, 2009

Bad news from California: MRSA quadrupled

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Via the Fresno Business Journal and the Torrance Daily Breeze come reports of a new study by California’s Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development: Known MRSA cases in the state’s hospitals increased four-fold between 1999 and 2007, from 13,000 to 52,000 cases per year. From the Torrance paper: The good news is that the percentage of [...]

Written by Maryn McKenna

Also posted in MRSA, hospitals, human factors, medical errors

August 13, 2009

One more set of recommendations

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… and then next week I’ll be back to analyzing the medical literature: A stack of interesting new journal articles is threatening to topple and bury my computer. For the moment, though: First, the Hearst newspapers chain has conducted a nationwide investigation into medical errors that should be required reading for anyone who wonders why hospitals can’t [...]

Written by Maryn McKenna

Also posted in MRSA, checklist, health policy, hospitals, human factors, medical errors

July 24, 2009

Federal plan to reduce HAIs: public meetings

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Let’s switch back for a moment to MRSA and other infections in hospitals. An estimated 1.7 million healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) occur in the US each year. Approximately 99,000 of the infected die. Care for the infected costs the health care system $33 billion (yes, with a B) each year. The US Department of Health and Human [...]

Written by Maryn McKenna

Also posted in HHS, hospitals

June 9, 2009

10 years but little progress on patient safety

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Constant readers, I’ve been away for a week — trying to get my breath back now that the chaos of the novel H1N1/swine flu is diminishing — and so I’ve missed a lot of news. Over this week, I’ll try to catch you up on it. First up: Some of you know that, 10 years ago, [...]

Written by Maryn McKenna

Also posted in activism, health policy, hospitals, mandatory reporting, medical errors

April 7, 2009

How hospitals are like cockpits

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We’ve talked a couple of times about the growing push for checklists in surgery and elsewhere in hospitals, promoted by Hopkins professor and MacArthur “genius” grant-winner Dr. Peter Provonost and modeled on the use of checklists in aviation. (This stuff interests me not just because it offers so much promise for MRSA reduction but because, [...]

Written by Maryn McKenna

Also posted in aviation, checklist, hospitals, medical errors