The post Grand Island Regional Breaks Ground on New Hospital appeared first on HCO News.
]]>GRAND ISLAND, Neb. — A groundbreaking ceremony for the new Grand Island Regional Hospital in Grand Island will take place on Oct. 19. The new hospital will be Grand Island’s second, and will include emergency care, surgery, labor and delivery, imaging and diagnostics, endoscopy and interventional procedures.
The 174,000-square foot-building has a budget of $110 million. HDR based out of Omaha is the architectural, engineering and consulting firm on the project, working with Chief Industries subsidiary Prataria Ventures to build the hospital. The general contractors on the project will be a joint venture of Chief Construction Co., based out of Grand Island, and Sampson Construction in Omaha. Construction is projected for completion by October 2019 with the expectation that the hospital will begin to serve patients in 2020.
The hospital will provide six emergency care rooms, five operating rooms, two cath lab and interventional radiology rooms and two endoscopy/procedure rooms. In addition, there will be a post-anesthesia care unit, a pharmacy, central sterile processing, three labor and delivery rooms, one C-section suite, two antepartum rooms and eight postpartum rooms.
The new facility will be four stories high with the capability to expand two more stories in the future. The upper floors of the building will include a mechanical floor with offices and two floors of bed units, with 32 beds on each floor. All patient rooms will be private and grouped in sets of eight with a family lounge located at each end of the patient floors.
The new building is designed with extensive natural light and will have artwork displayed throughout. Iron oxide paint, stone and wood will contribute to the colors and textures of the new facility. White walls, a wood ceiling, an aluminum curtain wall and high clerestory windows near the roofline will create the atmosphere of the lobby entrance.
Finally, the hospital will have a kitchen, dining room, community conference room and administrative suite as part of the support departments for the hospital.
The post Grand Island Regional Breaks Ground on New Hospital appeared first on HCO News.
]]>The post Rate of HAI Deaths Alarmingly High, Report Finds appeared first on HCO News.
]]>Every year, an estimated 648,000 people in the U.S. develop infections during a hospital stay and about 75,000 die, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The latest hospital ratings are included in the report, “How Your Hospital Can Make You Sick.”
For the first time, the report includes information about two common and deadly infections: MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus) and C. diff (clostridium difficile). This is the second piece in a three-part investigative series from Consumer Reports focused on America’s antibiotic crisis.
"High rates for MRSA and C. diff can be a red flag that a hospital isn’t following the best practices in preventing infections and prescribing antibiotics," said Doris Peter, Ph.D., director of Consumer Reports’ Health Ratings Center, in a statement. "The data show it is possible to keep infection rates down and in some cases avoid them altogether."
MRSA infections claim the lives of more than 8,000 patients each year in the U.S. and sicken almost 60,000. C. diff is even more prevalent. Each year, about 290,000 Americans develop a C. diff infection in a hospital or other health care facility and at least 27,000 of them die, according to the CDC.
To develop ratings for MRSA and C. diff, Consumer Reports analyzed information hospitals reported to the CDC. The MRSA and C. diff ratings are now part of Consumer Reports’ hospital ratings, which also include central-line associated blood stream infections, surgical-site infections and catheter-associated urinary tract infections. These scores, in addition to the new data for MRSA and C. diff, make up a larger composite infection score for individual hospitals.
To earn Consumer Reports’ very top rating in preventing MRSA or C. diff, a hospital had to report zero infections — 322 hospitals across the country were able to achieve that level in the MRSA Ratings, and 357 accomplished it for C. diff. Hospitals distinguish themselves when they earn high ratings against both infections —105 did that.
Several high-profile hospitals got lower ratings against MRSA, C. diff, or both, including the Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Mount Sinai Hospital in New York and Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles.
Only nine hospitals received higher ratings in avoiding not only MRSA and C. diff infections but also for avoiding the other infections included in Consumer Reports’ Ratings. They include Northwest Texas Healthcare System in Amarillo, Texas; Jupiter Medical Center in Jupiter, Fla.; White County Medical Center in Searcy, Ark.; Centennial Hills Hospital Medical Center in Las Vegas, Biloxi Regional Medical Center in Biloxi, Miss.; Johnston Memorial Hospital in Abingdon, Va.; Lima Memorial Health System in Lima, Ohio; Western Arizona Regional Medical Center in Bullhead, Ariz.; and South Baldwin Regional Medical Center in Foley, Ala.
The post Rate of HAI Deaths Alarmingly High, Report Finds appeared first on HCO News.
]]>The post CRE Bacteria Threaten Health Care Facilities appeared first on HCO News.
]]>The bacteria, carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), have increased fourfold over the past decade from 1.2 percent in 2001 to 4.2 percent in 2011. In the first half of 2012, 200 health care facilities (18 percent of long-term acute care hospitals and 4 percent of short-stay hospitals) treated patients with CRE. And facilities in 42 states have reported at least one case of CRE.
While infections are uncommon, the bacteria pose what CDC Director Thomas Frieden called a “triple threat.” The bacteria are resistant to antibiotics; they kill up to half of patients who get bloodstream infections from them; and they can transfer their antibiotic resistance to other bacteria within the family, possibly making other bacteria also untreatable. Almost all CRE infections occur in patients that receive care for serious conditions.
The germs spread from person to person, usually on the hands of health care professionals. The CDC said the spread of CRE can be controlled using standard infection control precautions, such as washing hands and having dedicated staff, rooms and equipment to care for patients with CRE. The CDC also requires health care facilities to inform each other when they are transferring a patient with CRE and suggests asking patients about recent medical care elsewhere, especially in other countries. Prescribing antibiotics wisely can also reduce the problem because the fewer antibiotics are used, the less likely that antibiotic resistance will occur. Check more info here: https://antibioticstore.online/
As of now, the bacteria have not spread to the wide community, but if they do, the situation would be much more difficult to control, according to the CDC.
The post CRE Bacteria Threaten Health Care Facilities appeared first on HCO News.
]]>The campaign, led by the CDC and the Safe Injection Practices Coalition (SIPC) is meant to raise awareness for patients and health care providers about safe injection practices.
The post CDC Raises Awareness About Safe Injection Practices appeared first on HCO News.
]]>The campaign, led by the CDC and the Safe Injection Practices Coalition (SIPC) is meant to raise awareness for patients and health care providers about safe injection practices.
Since 2001, more than 150,000 U.S. patients have been notified of possible exposure to hepatitis B virus, hepatitis C virus and HIV as a result of errors in basic infection control practices — most of which involved health care providers reusing syringes and contaminating medication vials used on the since-notified patients, according to the campaign website. These exposures are linked to increasing outbreaks, including the more than 700 patients that were possibly exposed to all three viruses from insulin pens used at a Buffalo, N.Y., veterans hospital, as reported by The Washington Post earlier this month.
The campaign goal is to guarantee that patients are protected every time they receive a medical injection. In doing so, they plan to empower patients and re-educate health care providers on safe injection practices by raising awareness about the topic and encouraging both patients and providers to insist on nothing less than the campaign’s “one needle, one syringe, only one time” slogan — reducing the chance of infection.
Perhaps the biggest opponent to the campaign is the green health care supporters, who are looking to eliminate the amount of medical waste produced — about 7,000 tons a day or 2.5 million tons annually, according to Newsweek. While they’re not supporting the reuse of needles, they do believe that safely resterilizing medical equipment is the best way to reduce hospital waste.
Health care equipment, such as bronchoscopes and endoscopes, is too expensive to throw away after each use, but the reuse of it requires heavily regulated sterilization procedures. In the near future, the same caution and regulations will likely be put into place for more medical equipment as a result of the campaign.
The post CDC Raises Awareness About Safe Injection Practices appeared first on HCO News.
]]>