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Clifton Broumand Man & Machine, Inc. (301) 341-4900 ◆ www.man-machine.com
Introduction Hospital-acquired infections (“HAI”) are increasing at alarming rates creating a growing financial burden on the health care system. New laws and regulations are shifting responsibility and financial burdens to hospitals which must quickly implement solutions or face onerous expenditures. One area coming to the forefront in the battle with HAI are computer keyboards and mice. These ubiquitous devices are in hospital operating rooms, patient rooms, nursing stations, laboratories, and other clinical and non-clinical facilities. Standard keyboards and mice are near impossible to disinfect. A plethora of solutions are offered but many fail to meet the demanding needs of hospitals battling HAI.
The Problem Hospital-acquired infections are defined as medical related issues not associated with the patient's original diagnosis that typically surface 72 hours after admittance. HAI are usually bacteria but may also be viruses, fungi, or parasites. All may be difficult and expensive to treat and add additional cost to the hospital. According to the University of Michigan Health Systems, the most common HAI sources of infection in their hospital are urinary catheters, central venous (in the vein) catheters, and endotrachial tubes (tubes going through the mouth into the stomach). Additional causes include passage for drug resistant germs from patient to patient, unclean hands and clothing and inadequately cleaned equipment. More vigilance is imperative to properly clean hospitals; especially in high-risk clinical areas. A 2007 study by Boston University researchers indicated hospital cleaning staff overlooked half the objects that should have been disinfected in the operating rooms at four New England hospitals.
The full scope of the problems caused by these microscopic menaces is not known because the federal governments does not yet require hospitals to report the number or the nature of HAI. To date, five bills have been introduced to establish a national infection reporting law, but none have yet to be established. Many states require some type of HAI reporting but presently only five have issued reports; Florida, Pennsylvania, Missouri, South Caroline and Vermont. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has issued one of the most comprehensive HAI reports. According to the 2006 Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council study, out of 1,574,170 hospital stays, 30,237 patients contracted an infection during their hospitalization, a rate of 19.2 per 1,000 cases.
The most challenging HAI is the proliferation of expensive-to-treat MRSA (“methicillin- resistant Staphylococcus aureus”) an antibiotic resistant superbug. MRSA infections have grown from fewer than 2000 in 1993 to an unprecedented quarter million in 2005 according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. All indicators point to MRSA infections multiplying to over a million a year within the next few years. According to Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, MRSA infections represent only 8% of hospital infections. Add a broad number of other bacterial infections (Acinetobacter, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella) that cause fever, lethargy, headaches, skin boils or abscesses and in some cases pneumonia, toxic shock or even death and the HAI problem becomes staggering.
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