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StaphAseptic™ News
Hospitals make headway on patient infections
November 23, 2009
The Boston Globe
By Liz Kowalczyk
Globe Staff
Massachusetts' largest hospitals say they have significantly cut the number of patients who acquire painful, costly, and sometimes deadly infections in their operating suites and intensive care units, suggesting that pressure from government regulators and patient groups, as well as a shift in doctors' attitudes, is starting to make medical care safer.
Several academic medical centers in Boston said the number of ICU patients contracting bloodstream infections had dropped by at least half in the past several years because of new procedures to keep intravenous lines and other tubes cleaner.
Hospitals also said they have reduced the number of patients on respirators who develop pneumonia - Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center said so few patients now get this type of infection that the hospital was able to cancel plans to expand its ICU.
At New England Baptist Hospital, a leading knee, hip, and spine surgery center, the number of orthopedic surgery patients with infected incisions has stead ily declined to 0.3 percent. There were 28 cases in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, down from 63 patients seven years ago.
"Absolutely, our hospital is safer than it was," said Maureen Spencer, infection control manager at Baptist, which now treats some high-risk patients with germ-fighting baths before they are admitted.
This is only a portion of the original article. To read the entire article, visit Boston.com
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