Monday, November 26, 2018

Infection Prevention Shortcomings: A Betrayal of Trust?

All serious endeavors must begin with answering the question 'why?'  

We have a paper currently in press titled Infection Prevention in the Hospital: How Much Can We Prevent and How Hard Should We Try? The paper will be published in January 2019, Current Infectious Diseases Reports.

We estimate that 50%-70% of hospital-acquired infections are potentially preventable.

So how hard should we try and why?

In the book Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health, Laurie Garrett writes that “public health is an essential trust, between government and its people, in a pursuit of health for all…” This includes “...a healthcare system that follows the primary maxim of medicine- do no harm.”

In my opinion, healthcare systems that fail to prioritize and relentlessly pursue infection prevention betray the maxim of medicine, primum non nocere.  This is a betrayal of the public's trust. 

Our safety mandate is clear.