Kaiser Health News Reports that Connecticut Hospitals Rank Below National Safety Benchmarks
Stamford, CT (PRWEB) November 26, 2014 -- According to an article published on Oct. 21 by Kaiser Health News, more than half of Connecticut hospitals rank below national safety benchmarks for at least one hospital acquired infection, landing the state the worst performance in the country.
Authors of a 2011 study in the New England Journal of Medicine highlight the problem and note that if hospital personnel simply followed infection prevention recommendations, the number of patients to contract hospital-borne infections would decline.
“The percentage of time that health care providers do all of the things they are supposed to do when caring for a patient with a contagious disease can be pretty low,” said one of the study authors, Dr. Don Goldmann, chief medical and science officer at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, a nonprofit in Cambridge, Mass. “There’s a lot of room for improvement.”*
According to Kaiser Health, 16 of the 27 Medicare-certified hospitals in Connecticut rank below average for at least one type of infection. The CDC recognizes six different categories of infection, according to article: “those from flexible tubes inserted into veins to deliver medicines or nutrients; infections from catheters that drain bladders; two antibiotic resistant germs, Clostridium difficile (C. diff) and Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA); and two surgical site infections after hysterectomies and colon operations.”*
Russell Berkowitz of The Berkowitz Law Firm LLC says he recognizes there are different ways of preventing each type of infection, some easier than others. “Regardless of what needs to be done to prevent an infection from spreading — it needs to be done,” he said. “Health care providers have a responsibility to protect the safety of their patients, and the fact that Connecticut hospitals are falling short is unacceptable.”
About The Berkowitz Law Firm LLC
The Berkowitz Law Firm LLC is a Connecticut-based medical malpractice law firm that represents families of individuals who are injured or killed by medical mistakes. The attorneys at the firm have vast experience in a number of medical malpractice matters, including hospital-acquired infection. To learn more, visit http://www.berkowitzlawfirm.com.
Sources:
Russ Berkowitz, The Berkowitz Law Firm LLC, http://www.berkowitzlawfirm.com/, +1 (866) 314-9352, [email protected]
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