Can someone explain, even if there are resistant pathogenic bacterial strains floating around, where the entrypoint for infection is? Operating rooms are cleanrooms, and after that, with good dressings on the wounds, bacteria should be prevented from entering.
"Flesh eating bacteria" due to scratching is one thing; bacteria that gain a foothold through the GI tract is another; I understand how those infections get started.
However, internal infections caused somehow by surgical wounds? Are surgical suite clean rooms not a low enough class and therefore not sterile enough? Is wound aftercare not good enough? Are surgical tools getting contaminated after sterilization but before the surgery?
Maybe hospitals should be turned into high-class[1] (lower-effectiveness) cleanrooms. I realize laminar flow in such a chaotic environment is impossible, and of limited effectiveness if people are not gowned and so shed contamination all the time, but there could at least be an attempt to push some of the contamination to vents on the floor. How much would that increase costs? It wouldn't have to be entire hospitals, only the recovery wards.
Other than that, a major initiative to clean up hospitals could be undertaken. Surfaces and floors and everything else commonly touched should be sterilized more often, to start with. Any area that sees a lot of patient turn-over is going to be heavily contaminated. Anyone who goes from room to room (doctors, nurses) should wear gloves before entering a room to avoid cross-contamination. Donning new gloves once in a room is not good enough; doorknobs, clipboards, light switches, etc. are all still subject to cross-contamination.
Recent studies on hotel rooms made me never want to check into one again:
Hospitals really can be that bad. People get sloppy if they aren't constantly reminded that they need to be vigilant. I have personally witnessed doctors open doors with bloody gloves and then interact with patients.
The funny thing is (if by funny you mean absolutely horrific), some doctors and hospitals really dislike the idea of checklists. For a variety of reasons, but one suspects that the motivating concern is that it assumes it's possible for doctors to be utterly incompetent.
As I said in a different comment, doctors can be exceedingly sloppy. There are no consequences. There's no clear evidentiary trail pointing back to the doctor (there could be -- but hospitals have no interest in that). And the worst thing is that we have a culture of sheep who treat doctors as if they are a kind of God. They aren't. Some of them are heroes, but some are worse than the average car mechanic.
Can someone explain, even if there are resistant pathogenic bacterial strains floating around, where the entrypoint for infection is? Operating rooms are cleanrooms, and after that, with good dressings on the wounds, bacteria should be prevented from entering.
"Flesh eating bacteria" due to scratching is one thing; bacteria that gain a foothold through the GI tract is another; I understand how those infections get started.
However, internal infections caused somehow by surgical wounds? Are surgical suite clean rooms not a low enough class and therefore not sterile enough? Is wound aftercare not good enough? Are surgical tools getting contaminated after sterilization but before the surgery?
Maybe hospitals should be turned into high-class[1] (lower-effectiveness) cleanrooms. I realize laminar flow in such a chaotic environment is impossible, and of limited effectiveness if people are not gowned and so shed contamination all the time, but there could at least be an attempt to push some of the contamination to vents on the floor. How much would that increase costs? It wouldn't have to be entire hospitals, only the recovery wards.
Other than that, a major initiative to clean up hospitals could be undertaken. Surfaces and floors and everything else commonly touched should be sterilized more often, to start with. Any area that sees a lot of patient turn-over is going to be heavily contaminated. Anyone who goes from room to room (doctors, nurses) should wear gloves before entering a room to avoid cross-contamination. Donning new gloves once in a room is not good enough; doorknobs, clipboards, light switches, etc. are all still subject to cross-contamination.
Recent studies on hotel rooms made me never want to check into one again:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/11/07/marketplace-d...
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=hot...
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanroom#Cleanroom_classificat...