Great Health Finds

RID is the committee to Reduce Infectious Deaths that occur during hospital stays & surgeries. These infections affect 2 million Americans and cause ~103,000 deaths per year. RID offers some simple steps to avoid this potentially life-threatening type of infection. Here are 3 of them:

• Ask that hospital staff clean their hands before treating you, and ask visitors to clean their hands too.
• Before your doctor uses a stethoscope to listen to your chest, ask that the diaphragm (or flat surface of the stethoscope) be wiped with alcohol.
• If you need a “central line” catheter, ask your doctor about the benefits of one that is antibiotic-impregnated or silver-chlorhexidine coated to reduce infections.

15 Steps to Reduce Infectious Deaths
Preventing Infections in Hospitals

This entry was posted on Friday, February 16th, 2007 at 5:37 am and is filed under Cool Sites, General Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.