Living On WELL Street

A Reuters article today, When Cameras Are Watching, More Doctors Wash Up (Genevra Pittman, 11/30/11), describes an 81% improvement in healthcare workers' hand washing practices after cameras were installed in a New York hospital.  The article reports that, "Before health workers started getting that constant feedback, less than seven percent of them washed their hands immediately when entering or before leaving a patient's room, according to video records.  That shot up to 82 percent in the weeks after the hallway messages (electronic reporting of compliance rates) started, and reached an average high of 88 percent over the next year and half of monitoring.”  

A CNN article, "The Gruesome Math of Hospital Infections”, indicates that approximately 100,000 people die each year from infections they contract in U.S. hospitals – that’s more than one infected person, per hospital, every single month! Health care professionals can reduce that number by satisfying basic hand washing requirements.  

Red light cameras are installed to save lives at intersections.  If hospital cameras are needed to get 81% more health care professionals to properly wash their hands, in order to reduce infections and save lives, let’s start installing them today!

Live WELL!

M. J.