A local guest editor, Dr Eric Steele, Bangor, ME, writes about transparency regarding Medical Errors in today’s Bangor Daily news. This link tells the story of an unfortunate man who lost his life in a small Maine Hospital because of a huge overdose of Epinephrine. Dr Steele, while recognizing the tragedy of the mans death, also applauds the hospital because they accepted the responsibility of this error ,made changes to correct the problem and apologized to the family.
If only this same thing could be done for the thousands of people who die each hear from Hospital Acquired Infections. Many things are being done, but the most important one for MRSA is not being done as practice in the State of Maine. Active Detection and Isolation is a proven method of prevention for MRSA. Mandatory public reporting as also been successful in making hospitals accountable and transparent about these infections, and yet the Maine Hospital Association and Epidemiologists and other representatives from all Maine hopsitals have rejected and fought both of these measures.
I hope that Dr Steele is as serious about HAIs as he is about other Medical Errors.
http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/147267.html?comment_result=posted#comments-post
Kathy Uncategorized Bangor, bangor daily news, Dr Eric Steele, Hosiptal Acquired infections, Maine, medical errors, medical transparency, MRSA public reporting
http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/135860.html
Below is a photo of a Hand MRSA. Many of the infections on Vinalhaven affected the hands.
This is an update on a link I added here a few days back. It is good to hear that the MRSA outbreak on Vinalhaven Island in Maine has been controlled. Comments in this article make it sound like they were plagued with flea bites.
MRSA is a bit more serious than claimed here. Some of these victims had to be treated with powerful IV antibiotics. Some of them will be plagued with repeated infections and all of the victims families have been exposed within their homes to MRSA. Simple exposure is not in and of itself a problem. But, many of them may have become colonized. that means they will carry the MRSA bug. That is also not a problem UNLESS they become gravely ill and/or need hospitalization for invasive procedure. MRSA can then rear it’s ugly head and cause a myriad of problems. Patients must make their doctor and hospital aware of their close exposure to the infection. If the doctor does not order a MRSA screening, the patient should demand one. If they are colonized, they can have a simple treatment that will decrease their chances of serious active infection a great deal. And, they can be separated from patient who do not carry MRSA thus avoiding spread of the desease.
I suggested that former MRSA patients and caretakers of MRSA patients to be included in the populations to be screened by our hospitals here in Maine. They were not included. My opinion is that was a big mistake. Nobody wants to incite panic, but a little bit of panic makes people pay attention and absorb important information about their health and risks to it. MRSA status on admission to the hospitals is a very important status to be aware of.
So, it is good that the Maine CDC got right on this outbreak and worked to control it. I just hope they added this important patient education (about avoiding serious infection in the future) to their investigation process on the Island.
Kathy Uncategorized bangor daily news, hand mrsa, Maine cdc, Mrsa, mrsa colonization, mrsa infection, mrsa screening, MRSA spread, Vinalhaven Maine outbreak
