Hand Hygiene Important Factor in Patient Safety in Florida Hospitals
As reported in News- Press.com by Frank Gluck
Signs posted in hospital break rooms at Lee Memorial Health System hospitals keep tabs on how often staffers are caught skipping hand washing — usually not often. Once taboo in hospital and health care settings, nurses and support staff are encouraged to call out doctors doing anything that might spread germs. Even casual patient contact with doctors’ neckties and iconic white coats are suspect.
These and a long list of hygiene rules, started in earnest seven years ago and taking place at hospitals nationally, may be behind sharp drops in one of the most common hospital infections, a pair of new studies show. Central-line associated bloodstream infections, which kill up to a quarter of patients who contract them, have plummeted 40 percent at Lee Memorial’s hospitals over the past few years, system records show. Central lines are catheters usually guided near the heart by way of large veins, typically in the neck, chest or arm. They are used to monitor blood circulation, or to provide medication and fluids into the body.
“It really does take a cultural shift. You really have to work as a team,” said Dr. Marilyn Kole, the system’s medical director for clinical services. “And when you have units that are at zero (infections) — some units have been at zero for several years — it’s devastating for everyone when it doesn’t.”
Some individual hospital units have not had central-line infections for years. Less than a decade ago, roughly half of patients in a given intensive care unit would get infections.
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality reported this month that Florida hospitals have cut central line-related infections by 37 percent since 2009.
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