Private ICU rooms may lower infection risks

[Celebration]

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE7095XP20110110

Nearly one in every three ICU patients will catch a new bug in the hospital, increasing the average time they have to stay there by more than a week. All together, these hospital-acquired infections cost the U.S. health care system an estimated $3.5 billion per year.

............snip..........................................


"We had a great opportunity to study the effect of private rooms on infection acquisition rates because we could compare two close-by university hospitals -- less than a mile apart -- that serve the same area," she told Reuters Health in an e-mail.

In total, the hospitals recorded 6,597 bacteria, yeast and fungi infections over the 5-year period.

For the three bacteria that were at the focus of infection control -- methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus species (VRE) and Clostridium difficile -- the combined risk of a patient acquiring an infection fell by 54 percent after the transition to private rooms, taking into account the infection rate at the comparison hospital.

[valerief]

1. They didn't already KNOW this? nt

[bemildred]

2. Yeah, you could knock me over with a feather.

Diseases can be communicable?
:sarcasm:

[xchrom]

3. sometimes -- the Funny Snark is strong in you.

this was one of them -- :spray:

[Zoeisright]

4. Private hospital rooms in general lower infection risks. In fact, last summer

my DH was hospitalized. Every single room he was in was a single room.

[MuseRider]

5. I guess I am just stunned

that all ICU rooms are not private! When I was in critical care all of our patients had private rooms, infection was one of the reasons but there were other reasons too. It is an ICU with often tons of large pieces of equipment making loud noises and lots of beeps, alarms and the need for a lot of room when a patient goes bad. I simply can't imagine working in or being a patient in an ICU that was not private. Wow. It would be very hard to heal in a place that can be as noisy and busy as an ICU can.

Of course there is the big DUH factor here.

[Celebration]

6. I didn't think most were private

I remember an ICU as being sort of a round room with patients all around. But good grief, if the chance for infection is 50% higher in these situations, (I would have expected more but not that much more) they should be all be private rooms. They could still have glass in front of them, and be small, so that the patients could be seen.

[MuseRider]

7. Ours were private

and it was not a big shot hospital by any means. They were glass so we could sit outside if we needed to give the patient more quiet or privacy. We either sat inside the room with the patient or just outside the glass where we could see them and read the monitors at all times.

The rooms really need to be not small because of the need for many machines sometimes. Maybe they are all smaller now than they were when I practiced. I don't know.

With all the 24 hour activity in the ICU and the noise of that and all the monitors beeping away it would be impossible to provide the kind of environment really needed to heal IMO. Sadly I don't think that is the entire point of it anymore. How do they ever leave the ICU without a massive case of Sundowners Syndrome?

I am so glad to not be in the field anymore. Loved it though and miss it.