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| Patient Bathing: No Chlorhexidine Here! |
Here is another article on the efficacy of chlorhexidine patient bathing, this time in a general medical patient ward. The investigators compared routine patient bathing with soap and water vs chlorhexidine impregnated cloths. Study size was large and included nearly 15,000 patients.
The result: daily bathing was associated with a 64% decrease in the rate of hospital acquired infections, namely with MRSA and VRE.
We have always advocated common sense, broad based infection prevention measures such as hand hygiene, central line checklists, head of bed elevation, avoidance of femoral site for central venous lines AND chlorhexidine bathing of our patients. The latter is gaining acceptance, albeit slower than I fancy.
Despite scientific evidence, medical culture (the way we have always done things) can be difficult to change.
