All:
Good God! We sit around thinking about indefinite lifespans, working to avoid premature death (and, if we have our priorities right, practice calorie restriction) in order to reach actuarial escape velocity (3), and meanwhile we're at masive relative risk of dying of a bug caught during a trip to the hostpital!
The CBC is doing a series on this:
http://www.cbc.ca/ne...tal-infections/
This morning, they said that Hospital-Acquired Infections were teh 4th Leading Cause of Death in Canada -- more than breast cancer, AIDS, and several other causes of death combined. I thought that this had to be a mistake: perhaps eg they were the 4th leading cause of death IN HOSPITALS in Canada (which error is constantly made re: Barry Pomeranz' study on adverse drug reactions (1)). But I went a-Googling, and found:
http://www.legionmag...01.asp?id=print
"Dr. Dick Zoutman, ... physician director for Canada's Community and Hospital Infection Control Association ... and his fellow researchers from the Canadian Hospital Epidemiology Committee ... were busy working on a major study of infection control at acute care facilities across the country. The results were published last August in the American Journal of Infection Control. "We estimate that the total number of people in Canada that will get an infection as a result of being in hospital is 250,000 year in, year out. Of those, between 8,000 to 12,000 will die," notes Zoutman, the lead author. "That would make hospital infection the fourth leading cause of death in Canada, next to heart disease, cancer and stroke." "
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http://www.ctv.ca/se...bhub=PrintStory
"About 250,000 patients a year experience infected surgical wounds, blood infections and antibiotic-resistant organisms while in hospital, the survey found, based on hospital statistics.
Of those patients who contract infections, between 8,000 and 12,000 will die, the researchers were able to extrapolate from the data.
"That makes a hospital infection the fourth leading cause of death -- next to heart disease, cancer and stroke -- and it's been going on for a long time," Zoutman said ...
The cost of treating patients who acquire infections in hospitals is estimated at $1 billion.
Zoutman said there are four things hospitals need to work on to approach a zero hospital infection rate.
First is surveillance; actively looking for and monitoring infections within a hospital. The study found that only 13 per cent of hospitals conducted more than 80 per cent of the recommended surveillance activities, which involve recording the number of infections in the hospital...
In a subsequent follow-up survey, the researchers found that those hospitals that did have a focused surveillance had lower infection rates.
"So there is a payoff," said Zoutman.
Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital has had an infection control practitioner since the mid-'80s. It has since grown to a three-member team.
Allison McGeer, director of infection control at Mount Sinai, said that the hospital has the lowest rates of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections in the area.
Controlling infections is also important, yet the survey found only 10 per cent of hospitals conducted more than 80 per cent of the recommended control activities. These include everything from washing hands and keeping ventilator patients at a 30-degree angle to prevent stomach contents from coming back up, to educating staff about outbreaks when they occur.
Also important is having enough staffing -- nurses and technicians -- to actually do the work, as well as a medical director to co-ordinate an infection control program.
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This has to be (2), whose abstract does not mention these specific -- & ISTM crucial -- details. It does however add that "In 42.1% of hospitals, there was fewer than 1 infection control practitioner per 250 beds. Just 60% of infection control programs had physicians or doctoral professionals with infection control training who provided services. The median surveillance index was 65.6/100, and the median control index was 60.5/100. Surgical site infection rates were reported to individual surgeons in only 36.8% of hospitals."
This speaks well for the value of CR-enhanced immune systems ... and very low-risk lifestyles to avoid trauma (no extreme sports; taking public transit; holding handrails; etc).
The CBC broadcast this morning featured some rather harrowing stories about near-fatal infectioins aquired during Caesarian section operations.
Yikes!
Tomorrow, "The Current" is going to have a segment on how The Netherlands has apparently made astounding progress on this front; it will be available online at this link (whic currently goes nowhere):
http://www.cbc.ca/th...3/20050323.html
-Michael
1: Lazarou J, Pomeranz BH, Corey PN. Incidence of adverse drug reactions in hospitalized patients: a meta-analysis of prospective studies. JAMA. 1998 Apr 15;279(15):1200-5. PMID: 9555760 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
2. Zoutman DE, Ford BD, Bryce E, Gourdeau M, Hebert G, Henderson E, Paton S; Canadian Hospital Epidemiology Committee; Canadian Nosocomial Infection Surveillance Program; Health Canada. The state of infection surveillance and control in Canadian acute care hospitals. Am J Infect Control. 2003 Aug;31(5):266-72; discussion 272-3. PMID: 12888761 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
3. de Grey AD Escape velocity: why the prospect of extreme human life extension matters now. PLoS Biol. 2004 Jun;2(6):723-6.
http://biology.plosj...al.pbio.0020187
