Greenville Memorial Hospital infections rates are drawing the focus from Consumer Reports Magazines. Most people think that when they go into the hospital they will leave feeling better. That may not be the case for everyone. A recent article in Consumer Reports shows that the bacterial infection known as clostridium difficile or C. diff continues to plague some of the nation’s most prestigious medical centers and teaching institutions like Greenville Memorial Hospital. This data was captured from October 2014 to September 2015.
Greenville Memorial Hospital is one of the teaching institutions that is essentially not doing well in the prevention of C. Diff according to the Consumer Reports article. A teaching institution like Greenville Memorial Hospital is a place where medical and health care best practices are supposed to be in place, according to the article. Yet Greenville Memorial has a high rate of c diff infections. So Greenville Memorial Hospital infections need to be taken seriously by the hospital staff and administration.
The Consumer Reports article essentially concludes that in an age where hand sanitizer can be found on nearly every wall in a hospital, it is odd that this completely avoidable disease continues to present. The simple use of soap, gloves, disinfectants, and antibiotics are what are required to defeat it.
Out of the more than 3,100 hospitals evaluated by the Centers for Disease Control, one-third received a low rating for C. diff infection control, meaning their infection rates were worse than the national benchmark. Within these that received low marks are 19 of the nation’s largest teaching hospitals.
Greenville Memorial Hospital infections rate for C. diff was considered high. This hospital rated 12% worse than national rates for Avoiding C.difficile infections. They had 218 C. difficile infections reported from October 2014 – September 2015.
Other infection rates for Greenville Memorial taken from data at the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services during this time frame show:
Avoiding catheter-associated urinary tract infections – This hospital reported 50 catheter-associated urinary tract infections
This is 50% worse than national rates for this hospital’s mix of ICU
Avoiding MRSA infections – This hospital reported 23 MRSA infections
This is 43% worse than national rates.
Some tips that the CDC gives to help avoiding contracting C. diff if you are an inpatient in a hospital are:
Make sure you really need that antibiotic
Insist on your provider wearing gloves
Watch out for heartburn drugs
Find out the hospital’s policy on infection prevention
Infections within the hospital setting are a serious safety concern for patients and their families. An infection can kill a patient. Its enough for a patient to undergo a procedure, let alone having to also fight an infection while recovering. Fighting to recover from the initial procedure is hard enough on a patient. Greenville Memorial Hospital infections must be seen by everyone in our community as a very grave cause for concern. Simply put, patients lives are at risk.