Personal Health: A Basic Hospital To-Do List Saves Lives
By Jane E. Brody, Published: January 22, 2008, The New York Times
This is a call to arms for everyone who may someday be hospitalized, or who has a relative who may someday be hospitalized — which is to say everyone.
These days, to spend time in the hospital is to be at risk of contracting a hospital-acquired infection. Some of these infections can be life-threatening. But there is a simple way to make that hospital stay safer, devised by Dr. Peter J. Pronovost, a physician-researcher at Johns Hopkins.
The method — a five-item checklist to assure that proper precautions are taken to prevent infection — has been thoroughly tested, first at Johns Hopkins and later in 108 intensive-care units in Michigan, where it succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest dreams in saving lives and reducing costs for patients who received the major fluid tube called a central venous catheter.
See 5 steps and rest of article at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/22/health/22brod.html?scp=2&sq=jane+brody&st=nyt