Sleuthing in Hospitals

Hospitals are remarkably successful institutions for reducing illness and preventing death. For some patients, however, danger lurks inside the hospital doors.The greatest risk that the hospital environment presents to the patient is that of infection. More than 3 million infections each year are acquired in U.S. hospitals, afflicting about 1 patient in every 18 admitted to an acute care facility.1 Although antiseptic technique has been prescribed routinely in the century since Lister's principles became widely accepted, it is still common for patients to die with infections first acquired inside a hospital.Hospitals attract infected patients and breed the parasites . . .