A HOSPITAL SUCCEEDS IN REDUCING INFECTIONS.

A HOSPITAL SUCCEEDS IN REDUCING INFECTIONS. I posted here on the importance of reducing infections in hospitals and on how much might be done cheaply (by random testing of whether hospital personnel have clean hands). This article describes how a veterans hospital in Pittsburgh has reduced the infection rate to about one third of what it had been. The hospital’s expenditure on hand cleaner has doubled. A troubling point in the article is the suggestion that hospitals might have had little incentive to reduce infections in hospitals because their treatment costs are reimbursed: “’I think it was assumed that hospitals didn’t mind treating these infections because they were getting paid for it,’ Dr. Shannon said.” An encouraging point is that the Veterans Administration has taken action to copy this hospital’s procedures at 140 hospitals nationwide. I have the impression that hospitals do not copy successful practices from other hospitals as much as they should.