Warning on Hospital Infection
July 2, 2010 by Web Coordinator
Filed under Indoor Life News
New York Times -
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
As one superbug seems to be fading as a threat in hospitals, another is on the rise, a new study suggests.
A dangerous, drug-resistant staph infection called MRSA is often seen as the biggest germ threat to patients in hospitals and other health care facilities. But infections from Clostridium difficile — known as C-diff — are surpassing
Clostridium Difficile
MRSA infections, the study of 28 hospitals in the Southeast found.
“I think MRSA is almost a household name,” said Dr. Becky Miller, an infectious diseases specialist at Duke University Medical Center. “Everybody thinks of MRSA as a serious threat.” Dr. Miller presented the research on Saturday in Atlanta at a medical conference on infection in health care facilities.
“But C. difficile deserves more attention,” she said.
MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, are bacteria that cannot be treated with common antibiotics. They are often harmless as they ride on the skin, but become deadly once they get in the bloodstream. They enter through wounds, intravenous lines and other paths.
C-diff, also resistant to some antibiotics, is found in the colon and can cause diarrhea and a more serious intestinal condition known as colitis. It is spread by spores in feces. The spores are difficult to kill with most conventional household cleaners or alcohol-based hand sanitizers, so some of the disinfection measures against MRSA do not work on C-diff.
Deaths from C-diff traditionally have been rare, but a more dangerous form has emerged in the last 10 years. Still, MRSA is generally considered a more lethal threat, causing an estimated 18,000 deaths annually in the United States.
The new study looked at infection rates from community hospitals in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia in 2008 and 2009. It found the rate of hospital-acquired C-diff infections was 25 percent higher than MRSA infections.
The hospitals counted 847 infections of hospital-acquired C-diff, and 680 cases of MRSA.
Dr. Miller also reported that C-diff was increasing at the hospitals since 2007, while MRSA has been declining since 2005.
Hospital Infection Problem Persists
June 29, 2010 by Web Coordinator
Filed under Indoor Life News
New York Times -
By KEVIN SACK
The nagging and largely solvable problem of hospital-acquired infections remains as resistant to cure as the germs that contribute to an estimated 100,000 deaths a year, according to an annual government study issued Tuesday.
Despite a renewed focus on prevention and threats of governmental sanctions, hospitals continue to see increased rates of post-operative bloodstream infections and catheter-associated urinary tract infections, the Agency for 
Healthcare Research and Quality reported. The rates increased by 8 percent for bloodstream infections and 4 percent for urinary tract infections over the year before.
There was no change in the incidence of bloodstream infections caused by the placement of catheters in central veins. The only positive news came from a 12 percent reduction in the rate of post-operative pneumonia.
The report concluded that hospital-acquired infections merited “urgent attention.”
Dr. Carolyn M. Clancy, the agency’s director, pointed out that projects across the country had shown remarkable success in reducing infection rates by adhering to basic standards for hand hygiene, disinfection of patients, sterile handling of equipment and proper use of antibiotics. But at many hospitals those successes have yet to overcome an entrenched medical culture.
“Despite promising improvements in a few areas of health care,” Dr. Clancy said, “we are not achieving the more substantial strides that are needed to address persistent gaps in quality and access.”
Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, called the trend troubling but said the new health care law would “help turn these numbers around.” Under the law, hospitals with high rates of infections will be penalized by the government starting in the 2015 fiscal year.
The agency has been releasing its Congressionally mandated reports on health care quality and disparities since 2003. Over all, this year’s report found that the quality of care, based on 33 separate measures, was improving but at a slow pace.
The study found deep disparities in access to health care between those with insurance and those without it. For instance, 74 percent of women ages 40 to 64 who had insurance had received a mammogram in the previous two years, compared with 38 percent of those without insurance. Children were twice as likely to have had a dental exam in the past year if they were insured.
New Way Bacterium Spreads In Hospital
June 25, 2010 by Web Coordinator
Filed under Indoor Life News
New York Times -
By Nicholas Bakalar
Health care workers and patients have yet another source of hospital-acquired infection to worry about, British researchers are reporting.
Clostridium difficile, a germ that causes deadly intestinal infections in hospital patients, has long been thought to be 
spread only by contact with contaminated surfaces. But a new study finds that it can also travel through the air.
The researchers emphasized that there is no evidence that C. difficile can be contracted by inhaling the germs. Rather, they float on the air, landing in places where more people can touch them.
The bug is commonly spread by contact with infected feces, and the British scientists said the new study made it even more urgent to isolate hospital patients with diarrhea as soon as possible — even before tests confirm a C. difficile infection.
“We don’t want people to wait for the confirmation,” said the study’s senior author, Dr. Mark H. Wilcox, a professor of medical microbiology at the University of Leeds. “By then, the cat’s out of the bag.”
Outbreaks of C. difficile, a bacterium resistant to many antibiotics, have been increasing in the United States since 2001, along with the evolution of more virulent strains.
People in good health are rarely infected. But broad-spectrum antibiotics can wipe out the bacteria that normally live in the intestines, allowing C. difficile to flourish. Hospitalized people on antibiotics and the elderly, even when not taking medicine, are at high risk.
Health care workers who touch contaminated feces can spread the disease by direct contact with other people or just by touching objects. The spores are resistant to disinfectants and can survive in open areas for months.
The bacterium produces toxins that can cause fever, nausea, abdominal pain, severe diarrhea — and sometimes colitis, a serious inflammation of the large intestine.
Treatment involves replacing the broad-spectrum antibiotics with other antibiotics, usually vancomycin or metronidazole.
The British researchers began with a six-month investigation of 50 patients, symptomatic and not, with confirmed
infection. The air near 12 percent of them was found to be contaminated with C. difficile. The more active their diarrheal symptoms, the more likely they were to have spores in the air around them.
Then the scientists repeatedly tested 10 patients with symptomatic illness over a 10-hour period, and the air near 7 was positive for c. difficile, usually during visiting hours or when there was activity in patient rooms like food delivery, ward rounds or bedding changes. Surfaces around 9 of the 10 patients were also contaminated.
The scientists believe that the movement of people and the opening and closing of doors stir up spores on contaminated surfaces, helping them disperse and increasing the possibility of them spreading.
The finding is unlikely to change current preventive practice, said Dr. L. Clifford McDonald, an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He said that the study supported putting patients in a single room, “which is the norm here in the U.S.”
“There is a little bit of dispersion,” he added, “but the heavier contamination is still from direct contact.”
Dr. Wilcox agreed. “It’s important,” he said, “not to interpret the results as a justification for methods aimed at removing bacteria from the air, techniques that may be appropriate for highly immunocompromised patients, but not for those at risk for C. diff infection.”
The amounts of C. difficile found in the air were generally modest. There were no clouds of germs circulating in patients’ rooms. This may suggest a genuinely low level of airborne contamination, the researchers write, or it may be a result of methodological problems in collecting air samples: the initial location of the sampling devices, their design, or their movement to accommodate patient care or the arrival of visitors.
Dr. Wilcox said patients should protect themselves from C. difficile by the conscientious application of two substances that do not require a prescription: soap and water.
“For everyone in a hospital, staff or patients,” he said, “the chief thing is optimal hand hygiene.”
Dr. Marie Carter recommends healthier environments to patients
June 15, 2010 by admin
Filed under Success Stories
As a General Surgeon and Head of Wound Care for a metropolitan hospital, I look for ways to benefit my patients in their constant struggles against bacteria and a host of other infections.
Other than topical washes and education about controlling their condition, there was little I could do for them. That is no longer the case!
Thanks to the Healthier Environment Living Program™ there is now an environmentally friendly program that is highly effective in destroying a host of harmful bacteria and other dangerous microorganisms.
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My Healthier Environment Living Program™ professional tested and treated my office, my waiting room, my clinical facility, and my home. In all cases elevated bacteria counts were reduced to exceptional levels.
I highly recommend to every patient I see to implement to Healthier Environment Living Program™ into every facet of their daily lives. Their homes, laundry, work spaces, and vehicles should have this protection applied.
Dr. Marie Carter
General Surgery-Board Certified
Oklahoma
In Hospitals, Can Disinfectant Create Super Bugs?
June 4, 2010 by Web Coordinator
Filed under Indoor Life News
Time.com -
by Tiffany O’Callaghan
In hospital settings, disinfectants are regularly used to prevent the spread of bacteria and prevent infection, but a new study published in the January issue of the journal Microbiology, suggests that too much exposure to a disinfectant may actually cause harm by creating bacteria that can not only resist the cleaning product, but some antibiotics as well. A team of microbiologists from the National University of Ireland in Galway examined the effects of disinfectant on the bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which has been known to cause some hospital-acquired infections and can be particularly dangerous for people with weakened immune systems or those with conditions such as diabetes or 
cystic fibrosis. Researchers found that when they increased exposure to the disinfectant in lab cultures, the bacteria adapted to withstand the disinfectant. What’s more, exposure to the disinfectant also caused the bacteria to resist the commonly prescribed antibiotic ciprofloxacin, despite the fact that the researchers had never exposed the bacteria to this drug.
The microbiologists explain that Pseudomonas aeruginosa was able to withstand the effects of both the disinfectant and antibiotic by adapting to more effectively flush them out of bacterial cells. The researchers also found that, if overly diluted disinfectant was applied to the adapted bacteria, it was far more likely to survive than bacteria that had not been steadily exposed to high levels of disinfectant. This finding may indicate that if some incorrectly diluted hospital disinfectants are applied to surfaces containing the “super bug,” it could even promote the bacteria’s growth.
Of course, the most alarming finding for researchers was that the bacteria became antibiotic-resistant, even without ever being exposed to the ciprofloxacin. This research raises interesting questions not only for future study, but for practical application in hospitals—perhaps something as simple as using multiple types of disinfectant could thwart the evolution of some antibiotic-resistant bugs and reduce the incidence of hospital-acquired infections, the researchers suggest.
Cell Phones Spreading Superbugs in Hospitals
May 18, 2010 by Web Coordinator
Filed under Indoor Life News
Naturalnews.com-
Thursday, May 14, 2009 by: David Gutierrez, staff writer
The cellular phones that hospital doctors and nurses bring to work are widely contaminated with dangerous pathogens, even when the health workers wash their hands regularly, a new study has found.
“Our results suggest cross-contamination of bacteria between the hands of health care workers and their mobile phones,” wrote the researchers from Turkey’s Ondokuz Mayis University in the Annals of Clinical Microbiology and Antimicrobials.
“These mobile phones could act as a reservoir of infection which may facilitate patient-to-patient transmission of bacteria in a hospital setting.”
Researchers tested the dominant hands and mobile phones of 200 doctors and nurses in hospital intensive care units and operating rooms for bacteria capable of causing illness. While most of the health care workers followed hand washing guidelines, 95 percent of their phones tested positive for at least one dangerous form of bacteria. Almost 35 percent of phones contained two bacterial strains, while more than 11 percent contained three or more.
A full 12.5 percent of phones tested positive for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
MRSA is an antibiotic-resistant variety of the common S. aureus bacteria that is responsible for staph infections. Due to its drug resistant prosperities, MRSA is much more difficult to treat than a regular staph infection and is significantly more likely to cause dangerous complications. If MRSA invades deep tissue or spreads beyond the skin to other organs, complications can include skin necrosis, disfiguring abscesses, blood infections, pneumonia and even death. It is particularly dangerous to those in a weakened state, such as hospital patients.
The prevalence of the bacteria is on the rise, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimating that the rate of hospital staph infections caused by MRSA to have risen from 2 percent in 1974 to 63 percent in 2004. MRSA is now considered responsible for a full 60 percent of all infections in hospitals.
CDC statistics record 94,000 MRSA infections per year in the United States, leading to 19,000 deaths — more than the 12,500 deaths caused by AIDS in 2005. According to these figures, 31.8 out every 100,000 U.S. residents contract a MRSA infection each year. These figures were roughly in line with a nationwide survey conducted by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology in 2007, which estimated that 46 out of every 1,000 patients in medical facilities contracts an MRSA infection, or 1.2 million per year.
Prior studies have found MRSA contamination on electronic devices such as keyboards, but the current study may be the first to look at mobile phones specifically.
The researchers attributed the high rate of cell phone contamination to the fact that only one in 10 health care workers reported cleaning their phone regularly.
“Mobile phones are widely used as nonmedical portable electronic devices and [are] in close contact with the body,” the authors wrote. “The mobile phones are used routinely all day long but not cleaned properly, as health care workers [may not] wash their hands as often as they should.”
While doctors and nurses might be exposed to dangerous bacteria in the course of their work, they might then carry them home on their phones and expose others to danger, the researchers warned.
“Since no warning has been given for cleaning mobile phones to meet hospital standards, the same rates and composition of contamination of mobile phones could be risky when carried outside the hospital environment.”
The researchers advised that health care workers regularly swab their phones with alcohol-based disinfectants or anti-microbial substances. They concluded that banning cell phones from hospitals would be impractical, since the phones are now frequently used for work purposes during emergencies.
Medical Facilities Across the United States Reach Out for a Better Way to Protect Their Air and Surfaces
November 2, 2009 by admin
Filed under Medical Facilities
The Problem
As stated by Kristen Gerencher’s in the Wall Street Journal’s Health Matters - It’s the invisible threat that lurks whenever you stay in a hospital: hospital-acquired infections, the potentially dangerous bugs that can be spread around the facility when doctors, nurses and staff fail to wash their hands, sterilize medical equipment or take appropriate precautions with high-risk patients. The infections are especially sneaky because most symptoms show up after you leave the hospital, typically within 30 days of being discharged.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office weighed in this week on the state of hospital infections in a report that urged the Department of Health and Human Services to play a bigger role in overseeing recommended practices for countering infections. The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, also called for linking the four databases used to collect information on hospital infections to get a more consistent and national picture of the problem.
About 2 million Americans get hospital-acquired infections every year, says Lisa McGiffert, Austin, Texas-based manager of Consumers Union’s Stop Hospital Infections campaign. Some patients make a full recovery after a simple course of antibiotics and others battle invasive infections for years.
Almost 100,000 people die from hospital infections every year, making the bugs the sixth leading cause of death in the U.S., McGiffert says. People who get seriously ill but survive often face many costs, not to mention their suffering and disability, she says. “They have doctors, medicines, wound care, physical therapy that sometimes goes for years and years.”
Nationwide, a standard estimate is that hospital infections cost $5 billion to $6 billion a year, she says, noting that it’s likely to be much higher because that figure is 10 years old.
“If the federal agencies focused on it, they could save thousands of lives and billions of dollars,” McGiffert says. “In 20 years or even in 10 years this could be a really rare occurrence if everyone concentrated on it, put the resources into it.”
Culture change
One promising development is the culture change that’s starting to catch on at hospitals, she says.
“Hospitals are at least aware of the problem and setting goals,” says McGiffert, who runs the Consumers Union site StopHospitalInfections.org. “Before, they were saying these were inevitable.”
There are 22 states that require hospitals to report their infection rates. Several bills in Congress would create national reporting standards and requirements and impose a mandated ratio of infection-control professionals per number of hospital beds.
Some states have been leading the push as well. Pennsylvania now requires hospitals to report the incidence of all four major types of infections and screen for an antibiotic-resistant bug known as MRSA. Next year New York will begin mandating the state’s hospitals to disclose the ratio of infection-control professionals per bed. A good number to aim for is 1 per 100, McGiffert says. “In order to control infections, you have to have a well-organized program that involves everyone in the hospital.”
McGiffert says she’s seen a lot of progress in the five years Consumers Union has run its advocacy campaign. But there’s much work ahead. “We really don’t have a good system for assessing the progress we make because we don’t have an organized national system for collecting the incidences of infection when they occur.”
The Solution
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