People go to the hospital to be treated for their injuries, but far too often they actually end up getting worse during their stay at the hospital. That’s because, according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 1 in 25 people who enter a hospital acquire what’s known as a hospital-acquired infection (HAI).
Hospitals do everything in their power to sterilize the patient, the rooms and all the surgical equipment, but it’s impossible to eliminate all the sources of infection. Data from the CDC shows that some of the most common types of hospital-acquired infections include:
- Pneumonia
- Surgical Site Infections
- Gastrointestinal Illness
- Urinary Tract Infections
- Bloodstream Infections
Hospital do what they can to prevent infections from occurring, but than can actually be counter-intuitive. The CDC believes that about 1 in 7 infections is caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which is a phenomenon that occurs when bacteria being treated with powerful drugs becomes increasingly resistant. When this bacteria enters the body through a surgical site or a catheter, it can make a hospital visit much worse. This bacteria can lead to sepsis, which causes your immune system to over-respond to the presence of a foreign object, sometimes leading to organ damage or even death. It’s estimated that sepsis is responsible for 1 million hospitalizations in the US each year and for more than one-third of all in-hospital deaths.
Preventing HAIs
There are a number of ways hospitals and medical centers work to reduce the spread of hospital-acquired infections. Here’s how some of the leading hospitals are cutting down on HAIs:
- Monitoring how long catheters are in a patient’s body
- Keeping devices and surfaces clean and disinfected
- Limiting foot traffic into the operation room
- Effective communication between hospitals and other health care facilities
- Washing hands often
In fact, here’s the complete list of ways to reduce hospital-acquired infections based on what procedure is being preformed and what type of infection is being prevented.