Hospital-Acquired Infections
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Hour 1
Most of us go to hospitals when we’re sick and expect to be healed, cured and mended but we don’t expect that the hospitals will make us sicker. Every year 100,000 patients die of hospital-acquired infections. You’ve probably heard of MRSA, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, but MRSA is just one of a growing number of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that’s wreaking havoc in hospitals and communities around the country and world. So what can hospitals do to reduce infection rates? And are there things patients can do to protect themselves from contracting infections? This hour, we hear from patient advocate KERRY O’CONNELL about his battle with a hospital-acquired infection. And we talk with infectious diseases physician NEIL FISHMAN, who is the associate chief medical officer for the University of Pennsylvania Health System.
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[audio: 042811_100630.mp3]
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