Case Study: Hospital Acquired Infections

Four test tubes were labeled “H2O A”, “H2O B”, “Enz A”, and “Enz B”. In the test tubes labeled “Enz A” and “Enz B” 1 mL of catalase was pipetted into each, and in the test tubes labeled “H2O A” and “H2O B” 6mL of deionized water was pipetted into each. Next the two test tubes labeled A were placed into an ice bucket, and the test tubes labeled B were placed in a 50°C water bath. These were left in their respected locations for 5 minutes each, and then the temperature of the test tubes in the ice bucket were recorded. Next the “Enz A” test tube was mixed with the “H2O A” test tube and 100µL of guaiacol and 150µL of .1% H2O2 were added to this mixture using a micropipette. The test tube was then covered with aluminum foil and inverted to mix the solution and then placed in a curvette and into the spectrometer. The initial absorbance was recorded and the curvette was placed back in the ice bucket. Then the contents of the test tubes labeled B were mixed and 100µL of guaiacol and 150µL of .1% H2O2 were added to this mixture using a micropipette. This was then placed in a curvette and into the spectrometer and the initial absorbance was recorded and the curvette placed back in the water bath. Finally after 5 minutes of time had passed each of these were placed in the spectrometer again and their absorbance levels recorded. This process should be a very quick one to ensure that the

Table 1 contained the number of bands and the size of each band for each sample. The first lane, the molecular ladder contained five bands with molecular weights of 97kDa, 65kDa, 45kDa, 30kDa, and 14.4kDa, respectively from the top to the bottom the gel. The second lane, filtrate contained four bands with the molecular weight of 135kDa, 41.6kDa, 16.6kDa, and 11.2kDa, respectively from the top to the bottom. The third lane, S1 contained three bands with the

Hospital acquired infections (HAI) will begin to display signs and symptoms within 48 hours. In order to treat the infections, physicians need to diagnostic tools quickly. The manufacturer of new diagnostic test makers, Kalorama Information stated last year that the world demand for testing and treatment of HAI will be over 10 billion dollars by the year 2015, increasing from 9 billion dollars in 2010. Kalorama also stated that HAI has a 5% infection rate of 40 million hospital visits a year, causing 100,000 deaths in the U.S. annually (Kalorama Information, July 14, 2011). Early diagnosis will improve the patient's outcome and decrease the chance of death. According to Kalorama, 20-30% of the HAI can be prevented by the simple use of better hand washing and cross contamination avoidance although the others need more intensive changes such as hospital ventilation systems and using more disposable supplies (Kalorama Information, p. 113) .

Hospital-acquired infections (HAI) affect 1.7 million Americans each year with as many as 98,000 dying annually as a result of hospital-acquired conditions (HAC) (Kavanagh, 2007). In 2008, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) implemented policy to include non-payment for HAC in order to improve quality patient care and contain costs. This non-payment disincentive refuses to pay for complications of care that are considered preventable. Two other paradigms of this policy used to promote quality include pay-for-performance initiatives and public disclosure of HAC.

In addition to antibiotic locks, antibiotic coated catheters have also been found to provide an extra barrier, which can diminish the amount of pathogens that could cause infection and illness within a

Systemic infection – this is an infection will result in the individuals whole body becoming affected. It can lead to systemic symptoms such as muscle pains, fever, and nausea.

The absorbance is measured using a Plate reader and a Standard curve is generated. Also, the different types of pipetting techniques are assessed in this Assay.

The evaluation of a primary quantitative research article includes “Safety and efficacy of a novel silver-impregnated urinary catheter system for preventing catheter-associated bacteriuria: A pilot randomized clinical trial”. This article was featured in American Journal of Infection Control, and was written to present a study that evaluates the safety and efficacy of a type of urinary catheter system which is impregnated with silver. Silver is known to be an antimicrobial agent and has previously been used in catheter manufacturing prior to this study as a silver-coated catheter system with mixed result studies noted for its effectiveness. The manufacturer of the

of this policy is to reduce the risk of infection transmission both to and from

Every executive in the hospital should be concerned about patient safety. Adverse drug events (ADEs) are costly, both in human terms and money. The cost of each ADE is significant, according to The Leapfrog Group (2014), each “ADE adds more than $2,000 on average to the costs of hospitalization.” As CFO, I need to balance the cost of new technology with patient safety. As CFO, I would like to have some incentives to implement these costly CPOE systems; however, these incentives may not help Suburban hospital improve quality of care. Lee et al. (2012). Found that the CMS policy to decrease payments to providers based on in-hospital infection rates “had no measurable effect on infection rates in U.S. hospitals.”

Healthcare Acquired Infections can be a huge issue to a facility and any way of reducing the microorganisms from spreading from one individual to another is our responsibility. Patients come to a facility believing that the room will be clean. The hospital should be providing a clean environment. The hospital can start with a clean slate that is almost sterile. It then becomes the health provider responsibility from spreading these microorganisms. Because of this machine, this will prove that it is the provider that is spreading the organism from one patient to another and not the facility.

Incorporation of assay controls included setting up a spectrophotomer and running the chart recorder with a full-scale deflection before the start of the assay. The set recorder had a corresponding value of 1 for the change in the absorbance. Therefore, prior testing was done to observe whether a change occurred in the readings. This helped to indicate that the results were valid, as they could have been affected by a fault during the setting up of the spectrophotometer. On the other hand this was considered as one of the controls for the experiment. Nevertheless, a new cuvette had to be used for each assay.

Weight data and images showing the physical appearance of the BPs are shown in Figure 3 and 4, respectively. Acetone-cleaned AD BPs lost approximately 26, 48, and 32 % of their weight, whereas methanol-cleaned AD BPs decreased their weight by around 29, 40, and 34 % at 300 ˚C for 90 min, 350 ˚C for 60 min, and 300 ˚C for 120 min, respectively. HiPco BPs lost about 22, 5, and 1 % at 350 ˚C for 30 min, 300 ˚C for 30 min, and 250 ˚C for 30 min, respectively. However, when we recalculated the weight change from the theoretical weight of AD BPs considering the surfactant effect, + 5, - 25, and - 2 % weight of acetone-cleaned AD BP were changed after HT at the first (300 ˚C - 90 min), second (350 ˚C - 60 min), and third (300 ˚C - 120 min) conditions while there were + 5, - 13, and 0 % changes in weight for methanol-cleaned AD BPs. As a result, at the first and third conditions, the weight change of AD BPs weight change was minimal and while for HiPco BPs weight change was minimal at the second and the third conditions.

Hospital acquired infections or HAIs are one of the main contributing factors that made health care organizations realize the need to continuously revise and improve infection control strategies. Infection control practices extend from the very simple proper hand washing techniques to the more complex decolonization processes to eradicate reservoirs of these pathogens, especially drug resistant strains like MRSA. For patients, a HAI can lead to very dangerous complications and in the case of drug resistant strains there’s an increased potential for prolonged treatment, sepsis and risk of death. This is why in recent years health insurance companies have been refusing to pay for the treatment of suspected HAIs which leaves the cost to fall on

Per Dr. Williams, your chest x-ray does not show any overt infection, but we do see a questionable finding that may be early infection. He have ordered an antibiotic to take once a day for seven days. Please follow up with him in 10-14 days .If your symptoms progress or worsen go to the ER.