How? About clean hospitals or How about clean hospitals?
Ok. It seems from the press internationally, that all hospitals are dirty…and blame is the name of the game.
The AARP says: “DIRTY HOSPITALS.” The Jerusalem Post says: SUPERBUG!. The British papers say “SHAME ON HOSPTIALS!”
After I recovered from my own disgust at the news about issues that Nightingale had taken on 150 years ago, I have taken a different turn. First of all, the future is now, and change happens in the present. Handwashing: why is it that it seems impossible for healthcare workers to wash their hands every single time they move from room to room, from patient to patient? Why is it so difficult to do the obvious? I would say, on the front end of this, that handwashing has historically not been very sexy. It is just pitifully low tech.
Historically, it started first with Maimonides, the Rabbi/physician who stated categorically that hands had to be washed…He wrote in the Mishna Torah (2nd Law of the Talmud) “Never forget to wash your hands after having touched a sick person.” Well, that is pretty clear. He also stated that he would dismount from his horse and wash his hands prior to seeing his patients. Consistent.
Then, there was no response. In fact, no progress between 1204 to 1843. Oliver Wendell Holmes, prof of Anatomy at Harvard, identified CHildbed Fever as caused by medical students going from doing an autoposy, handling a corpse, to deliverying babies. He wrote a seminal paper on it. Still, not sexy enough. Medical professional ignored him.
Then, Semelweiss again brought handwashing up when he saw his colleage due of a puncture wound incurred while performing an autotopsy. He ordered physicians and students to wash with a mixture of Chorine and Lime juice after an autopsy. mortality dropped to 3%.
Again, he lost his job and was ignored.
It took until 1970’s for the AMA to declare handwashing the single most effective means of preventing infection.
It is now 2007. Antiseptic gels are everywhere as are signs asking patients to ask their nurses to wash their hands. However, the statistic for handwashing is still 50%.
What if handwashing were considered symptomatic of all of facility hygiene? What if hands are not washed, then the temperature at which dishes are washed is not hot enough to sterilize them or at least get them clean enough to not cause a problem? What if…
How do make staying and keeping clean sexy and high tech? Or, just plain common sense?
