Odd things I've learned from the health care debate, add your observations

There are several studies comparing Place A with Place B, noting that although Place A spends less money on health care, people have better outcomes than in Place B. Buried on all the talk about how doctors in Place A are on salary and doctors in Place B are paid by the procedure is the observation is that typically people in high spending areas are admitted to the hospital more often, so more of them end up with (ta-da!) multiple drug resistant hospital infections!

That really hits home. A buddy of my husband went in about a year ago for a knee replacement. He got the knee replacement all right. He also got an intractable hospital infection. Last month, his leg was amputated. Above the knee.

for minor knee surgery. It took additional surgery and two more hospital stays before they got it under control. Luckily, he avoided amputation.

took him down. (He's fine now, btw, still working part time at 80+). Ironically, with all the high tech used to save him, what almost killed him was an infection because someone didn't take a minute to wash their hands before changing his urinary catheter.


This is where hospitals are penny wise and pound foolish - cut back on nursing staff and end up with more complications!

but theres no way things could be up to snuff in this environment ,where getting you out of there isn't necessarily got anything to do with your wellbeing.

talking about hospital infections in England. And the conclusion of the show was that many of the infections could have been prevented...

For example..

Washing hands between patients...

Dr's wearing ties, guess what they didn't change the tie between patients so they traveled from one to another with infection....

There was more...but I thought it was interesting.

I'm waiting for someone to notice all the people wearing scrubs outside the hospital. Shouldn't there be a rule that you wear scrubs in the hospital and street clothes once you leave?