Going to a hospital and getting even sicker is an all-too-common occurrence for many in the U.S.A., thanks to the high hospital infection rates.
Indiana University School of Medicine researcher Dr. Bradley Doebbeling is using a $400,000 grant to study this problem and come up with solutions. The study will take eighteen months and will require participating hospitals to come up with better hand hygiene policies and screen patients for MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus). MRSA is the most common example of what is known as a “superbug,” a strain of bacteria resistant to antibiotics.
Participating hospitals will also have to record the number of patients who get MRSA-something federal and state governments do not require hospitals to do.
The hospitals in the study say that they are already noticing results. This is unsurprising considering how straightforward the study’s experimental policies are: hand-washing and screening. Learning that such basic measures help prevent sickness is hardly a massive discovery.
