STOPPING HOSPITAL INFECTIONS–USE PETRI DISHES?

STOPPING HOSPITAL INFECTIONS—USE PETRI DISHES? We have just learned that a friend of ours has gone into a hospital to have surgery and has come down with a major unrelated infection. This is the third person we know to have this happen in the last year. The Freakonomics writers, Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt, wrote here about dealing with the problem of infections in hospitals. They cite an estimate that from 44,000 to 98,000 deaths in the United States in the year 2000 resulted from hospital errors, with the spread of bacterial infections being one of the leading causes. Dubner and Levitt discuss the incentives that one hospital has used to cut down on infections by getting hospital personnel to wash their hands. They write of one doctor who got results by having doctors place their hands in Petri dishes, which demonstrated how many germs were on their hands. The Freakonomics blog site has a number of comments and suggestions, but not the one that strikes me: Why not require hospital workers to place their hands in Petri dishes regularly? If to do so would be too expensive, then have them place their hands in Petri dishes frequently on a randomized basis.