After treatment, the workers all returned to their normal duties.  This is one of the never-never events where the hospitals eat the bill if patients become infected, and just over all this appears to me to be a good idea to test and see if in fact any staff in the hospital are infected, as it seems to me their level of potential infection with constant exposure is just as high if not higher than a patient at times.  Granted, they may not be as weak and do not have open wounds with surgical procedures healing, but many are carriers too without even knowing it.  One fascinating technology I have posted about before is a hand washing monitoring system and you can read more at the link below and watch the video.  BD

Real Time Monitoring of When you Washed your Hands – Don’t Touch that Patient Until You Have Washed Your Hands

“The way the system operated with the bedside monitor, the patient will see the green light too, so they will know if you have washed your hands imagetoo.   If the green light doesn’t appear you get a reminder to stop and wash with your ID tag that will vibrate.  I can say this is better than a voice calling out.   This is a full on data trail of who and when hands have been washed.  Read below to see an example of the reporting functions.  If you missed a hand washing, it will show.   The reports can also be exported to an Excel spreadsheet too.”

Fifteen operating room personnel at Bon Secours St. Francis Hospital, including surgeons and nurses, did not participate in surgery for a week to 11 days in August after testing positive for the presence of a common staph bacteria, hospital officials said Friday.

The affected staff have since returned to work after being treated with antibiotics and testing negative for Staphylococcus aureus. Surgical site infections in five out of 1,500 patients in July and August prompted the hospital to test 68 operating room staffers for the presence of staph, said Chief Medical Officer Dr. Steve Shapiro.

St. Francis Hospital: 15 OR staffers test postitive for staph The Post and Courier - Charleston SC newspaper

Related Reading:

Hand Washing Secret Shoppers Patrol the Hospital To Help Prevent Never Never Events

Real Time Monitoring of When you Washed your Hands – Don’t Touch that Patient Until You Have Washed Your Hands
Germ-Zapping Keyboard – for use in Hospitals to help prevent the spread of MRSA, C Diff, and other bacterial infections
Stuffing Paper Hospital Gowns in Gloves helping reduce the spread of MRSA
Superbug MRSA Living Amongst Us
DiFusion Technologies – Medical Device to fight infections after spinal surgery
Zinc Zipper' Plays Key Role In Hospital-Acquired Infections - MRSA
Placebo Journal Blog: MRSA SHIRT VIDEO

1 comments :

  1. I am one of the unlucky one to get the MSSA infection in the OR at Bon Secours St. Francis Hospital on Nov 2, 2011. Did not know it till Feb when I had to have a second surgery to open my foot back up to flushed out my foot for 4 days and got sent home with an IV of antibiotics in my arm for six weeks. Just as I started to think I was over all this it seems the infection is coming back. I will find out tomorrow.

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