Monday, November 4, 2013
A good time to ditch contact precautions?
I get that no one likes to don gowns and gloves before seeing patients, particularly infectious disease consultants who see a large number of patients colonized/infected with multi-drug resistant organizsms (MDRO). I understand that touching is important for healing and that somehow wearing gloves impedes the healing touch. I even see why some still think that contact precautions place patients at greater risk for medical errors, even if the data supporting that contention is lacking. What I don’t get is why infection prevention folks are pillorying one of the most effective methods we have in MDRO transmission prevention right when we need it the most.
My thoughts:
1) MDRO rates, particularly for Gram-negative pathogens like carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae and Acinetobacter are increasing.
2) We have no antibiotics in our quiver, so prevention is our only hope for a decade or more.
3) Most prior room occupant studies are flawed and when proper methods are used, prior room occupants are not a risk factor, thus the environment isn’t the only answer.
4) Hand hygiene compliance is only 60%. I know some are claiming 90% or more on their reports, but it’s simply not true.
5) Gloves are massively effective in reducing the burden of organisms on hands and contact precautions have now been shown to be effective in a randomized, controlled trial (if you can look past the JAMA trial nihilists).
Which brings me to the table below modified from a study we completed a few years ago. When a healthcare worker enters an A. baumannii+ patient’s room, 15% of the time they will leave the room with A. baumannii on their hands. If the hospital practices universal contact precautions, it will be 3% of the time.
So, I get why people hate contact precautions, particularly infectious disease-trained hospital epidemiologists. I just don’t get the delight with which they limit their use, given that contact precautions are supported by the strongest evidence that our dismal science can muster. I suspect, again, that I won’t have to live that long to witness their regret.
Eli N. Perencevich, MD, ACP Member, is an infectious disease physician and epidemiologist in Iowa City, Iowa, who studies methods to halt the spread of resistant bacteria in our hospitals (including novel ways to get everyone to wash their hands). This post originally appeared at the blog Controversies in Hospital Infection Prevention.
Labels: contact precautions, Controversies in Hospital Infection Prevention, drug resistance, Eli N. Perencevich, guest post, infectious disease, nosocomial infections
posted by Eli Perencevich at
11:00 AM
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Members of the American College of Physicians contribute posts from their own sites to ACP Internistand ACP Hospitalist. Contributors include:
Albert Fuchs,
MD
Albert Fuchs, MD, FACP, graduated from the
University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine, where he
also did his internal medicine training. Certified by the American
Board of Internal Medicine, Dr. Fuchs spent three years as a
full-time faculty member at UCLA School of Medicine before opening
his private practice in Beverly Hills in 2000.
And Thus, It Begins
Amanda Xi, ACP Medical
Student Member, is a first-year medical student at the OUWB School
of Medicine, charter class of 2015, in Rochester, Mich., from which
she which chronicles her journey through medical training from day
1 of medical school.
Auscultation
Ira S. Nash,
MD, FACP, is the senior vice president and executive director of the North Shore-LIJ
Medical Group, and a professor of Cardiology and Population Health at Hofstra North
Shore-LIJ School of Medicine. He is Board Certified in Internal Medicine and
Cardiovascular Diseases and was in the private practice of cardiology before joining the
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Zackary Berger
Zackary Berger, MD, ACP Member, is a primary care doctor and
general internist in the Division of General Internal Medicine at
Johns Hopkins. His research interests include doctor-patient
communication, bioethics, and systematic reviews.
Controversies in Hospital
Infection Prevention
Run by three ACP
Fellows, this blog ponders vexing issues in infection prevention
and control, inside and outside the hospital. Daniel J Diekema, MD,
FACP, practices infectious diseases, clinical microbiology, and
hospital epidemiology in Iowa City, Iowa, splitting time between
seeing patients with infectious diseases, diagnosing infections in
the microbiology laboratory, and trying to prevent infections in
the hospital. Michael B. Edmond, MD, FACP, is a hospital
epidemiologist in Iowa City, IA, with a focus on understanding why
infections occur in the hospital and ways to prevent these
infections, and sees patients in the inpatient and outpatient
settings. Eli N. Perencevich, MD, ACP Member, is an infectious
disease physician and epidemiologist in Iowa City, Iowa, who
studies methods to halt the spread of resistant bacteria in our
hospitals (including novel ways to get everyone to wash their
hands).
db's Medical Rants
Robert M. Centor, MD, FACP, contributes short essays contemplating
medicine and the health care system.
Suneel Dhand, MD, ACP Member
Suneel Dhand, MD,
ACP Member, is a practicing physician in Massachusetts. He has published numerous
articles in clinical medicine, covering a wide range of specialty areas including;
pulmonology, cardiology, endocrinology, hematology, and infectious disease. He has also
authored chapters in the prestigious "5-Minute Clinical Consult" medical textbook. His
other clinical interests include quality improvement, hospital safety, hospital
utilization, and the use of technology in health care.
DrDialogue
Juliet K. Mavromatis, MD, FACP, provides a conversation about
health topics for patients and health professionals.
Dr. Mintz' Blog
Matthew Mintz, MD, FACP, has practiced internal medicine for more
than a decade and is an Associate Professor of Medicine at an
academic medical center on the East Coast. His time is split
between teaching medical students and residents, and caring for
patients.
Everything
Health
Toni Brayer, MD, FACP, blogs about the rapid changes in science,
medicine, health and healing in the 21st century.
FutureDocs
Vineet Arora, MD, FACP, is Associate Program Director for the
Internal Medicine Residency and Assistant Dean of Scholarship &
Discovery at the Pritzker School of Medicine for the University of
Chicago. Her education and research focus is on resident duty
hours, patient handoffs, medical professionalism, and quality of
hospital care. She is also an academic hospitalist.
Glass Hospital
John H. Schumann, MD, FACP, provides transparency on the workings
of medical practice and the complexities of hospital care,
illuminates the emotional and cognitive aspects of caregiving and
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physician, and offers behind-the-scenes portraits of hospital
sanctums and the people who inhabit them.
Gut Check
Ryan Madanick, MD, ACP Member, is a gastroenterologist at the
University of North Carolina School of Medicine, and the Program
Director for the GI & Hepatology Fellowship Program. He
specializes in diseases of the esophagus, with a strong interest in
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I'm dok
Mike Aref, MD, PhD, FACP, is an academic hospitalist with an
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novel bedside imaging modalities, diagnostic reasoning, medical
informatics, new medical education modalities, pre-code/code
management, palliative care, patient-physician communication,
quality improvement, and quantitative biomedical imaging.
Informatics
Professor
William Hersh, MD, FACP, Professor and Chair, Department of Medical
Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology, Oregon Health &
Science University, posts his thoughts on various topics related to
biomedical and health informatics.
David Katz, MD
David L. Katz, MD, MPH, FACP, is an internationally renowned
authority on nutrition, weight management, and the prevention of
chronic disease, and an internationally recognized leader in
integrative medicine and patient-centered care.
Just Oncology
Richard Just, MD, ACP Member, has 36 years in clinical practice of
hematology and medical oncology. His blog is a joint publication
with Gregg Masters, MPH.
KevinMD
Kevin Pho, MD, ACP Member, offers one of the Web's definitive sites
for influential health commentary.
MD
Whistleblower
Michael Kirsch, MD, FACP, addresses the joys and challenges of
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relationship, medical ethics and measuring medical quality. When
he's not writing, he's performing colonoscopies.
Medical Lessons
Elaine Schattner, MD, FACP, shares her ideas on education, ethics
in medicine, health care news and culture. Her views on medicine
are informed by her past experiences in caring for patients, as a
researcher in cancer immunology, and as a patient who's had breast
cancer.
Mired in MedEd
Alexander M.
Djuricich, MD, FACP, is the Associate Dean for Continuing Medical
Education (CME), and a Program Director in Medicine-Pediatrics at
the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis, where he
blogs about medical education.
More Musings
Rob Lamberts, MD, ACP Member, a med-peds and general practice
internist, returns with "volume 2" of his personal musings about
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Distractible Kind).
Prescriptions
David M. Sack, MD, FACP, practices general gastroenterology at a
small community hospital in Connecticut. His blog is a series of
musings on medicine, medical care, the health care system and
medical ethics, in no particular order.
Reflections of a Grady
Doctor
Kimberly Manning, MD, FACP, reflects on the personal side of being
a doctor in a community hospital in Atlanta.
The Blog of Paul Sufka
Paul Sufka,
MD, ACP Member, is a board certified rheumatologist in St. Paul,
Minn. He was a chief resident in internal medicine with the
University of Minnesota and then completed his fellowship training
in rheumatology in June 2011 at the University of Minnesota
Department of Rheumatology. His interests include the use of
technology in medicine.
Technology in (Medical)
Education
Neil Mehta, MBBS, MS, FACP, is interested in use of technology in
education, social media and networking, practice management and
evidence-based medicine tools, personal information and knowledge
management.
Peter A. Lipson,
MD
Peter A. Lipson, MD, ACP Member, is a practicing internist and
teaching physician in Southeast Michigan. The blog, which has been
around in various forms since 2007, offers musings on the
intersection of science, medicine, and culture.
Why is American Health Care So Expensive?
Janice
Boughton, MD, FACP, practiced internal medicine for 20 years before
adopting a career in hospital and primary care medicine as a locum
tenens physician. She lives in Idaho when not traveling.
World's Best Site
Daniel Ginsberg, MD,
FACP, is an internal medicine physician who has avidly applied
computers to medicine since 1986, when he first wrote medically
oriented computer programs. He is in practice in Tacoma,
Washington.
Other blogs of note:
American Journal of
Medicine
Also known as the Green Journal, the American Journal of Medicine
publishes original clinical articles of interest to physicians in
internal medicine and its subspecialities, both in academia and
community-based practice.
Clinical
Correlations
A collaborative medical blog started by Neil Shapiro, MD, ACP
Member, associate program director at New York University Medical
Center's internal medicine residency program. Faculty, residents
and students contribute case studies, mystery quizzes, news,
commentary and more.
Interact MD
Michael Benjamin, MD, ACP member, doesn't accept industry money so
he can create an independent, clinician-reviewed space on the
Internet for physicians to report and comment on the medical news
of the day.
PLoS Blog
The Public Library of Science's open access materials include a
blog.
White Coat
Rants
One of the most popular anonymous blogs written by an emergency
room physician.
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