Cleaner Hospitals Spread Fewer Infections

Be sure to check out the latest edition of Grand Rounds, hosted this week at Sharp Brains.  The very first entry is one of the most interesting.  In a short and sweet post, Jessica Berthold of ACP Hospitalist tells us about a study that found that cleaner hospitals have a lower incidence of hospital-acquired infections.  Nothing shocking there, really.  What is shocking is the fact that hospitals aren’t already at the top of the cleanliness scale.  Although we’ve known for more than a century that germs cause disease, there is still a surprising lack of compliance with basic hygiene in the medical profession – even something as simple as hand washing between patients.   Jessica’s post describes a study at the Mayo Clinic that involved cleaning high-touch surfaces with bleach wipes twice a day for six months.  Their incidence of Clostridium difficile (C. diff) went from one case every few days to one case every three months.  Pretty impressive results, and a very easy solution.  Sterilizing high-touch surfaces in hospitals should be a matter of routine, but obviously that isn’t yet the case.  Maybe the Mayo Clinic study will help to get other hospitals on board in order to reduce the incidence of hospital-acquired infections across the country.