Limit hospital germs
When you enter a hospital for treatment, you may get more than you bargained for in the way of hospital-acquired infections. This can be serious because some bacteria are resistant to antibiotics and can invade the bloodstream, damaging skin, muscles, organs and/or bones, says a report in the June issue of Bottom Line Health.
An estimated 2 million Americans are infected annually, and 10 percent of hospital-acquired infections cause life-threatening problems. More than 90,000 Americans die of hospital-acquired infections every year.
To prevent such infections, patients must do more to protect themselves, said Edward K. Chapnick, director of the division of infectious diseases at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. While hand washing is the most effective way to help prevent the spread of bacteria, also consider the following:
* Ask doctors and nurses to disinfect with an alcohol wipe medical devices such as stethoscopes and blood-pressure cuffs before they touch your skin.
* Avoid touching tabletops, chairs and elevator doors.
* Ask visitors not to sit on your bed and not to use your bathroom because they could transfer germs to those surfaces.
* Ask for a staph test a week to 10 days before your surgery to test you for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). If you have the bacterium, specific steps for infection control will be taken at the hospital.
* While catheters and intravenous lines often are necessary, they can increase your risk for infection if bacteria enter the insertion site. Ask to have them removed as soon as medically possible.
Smart Web searches
Know what you’re doing when surfing the Internet for medical advice.
The June issue of Real Simple offers these tips for finding the most trustworthy online information:
* Go to health-specific Web sites such asWebMD.com, MayoClinic.com, medscape .com, medlineplus.gov or 4 women.gov rather than generic ones such as Yahoo! or Google to get information from respected health organizations.
* Look for sites with the seal of approval from the Health on the Net Foundation (HON). It’s usually located at the bottom of the site’s home page. HON requires an eight-point qualification code for the site and ensures that editorial content isn’t influenced by advertising.
* Ask your doctor to help you refine your search for a specific condition by pointing you to terms and drugs relevant to your health problem.
Caring for infant eyes
Eye and vision problems can be detected in babies younger than 12 months, yet most parents don’t have their children tested until much later in life, often leading to important treatment delays.
InfantSEE, a program launched by the American Optometric Association, offers a free visit to an optometrist for infants 6 to 12 months old for a close and early look at their eye health. It’s an effort to find early the 1 in 10 children at risk for undiagnosed eye and vision problems.
Typically, the baby is held on a parent’s lap as the optometrist uses lights and other handheld objects to determine whether the child’s eyes are working together and whether there are other problems that could impede proper vision development.
To find a participating optometrist in your area, go to the Web site InfantSEE.org.
Finding a doctor
Do you ever wonder which medical specialists doctors would choose to care for their own family members? You can find out at consumerscheck book.org.
This independent, non-profit consumer organization provides information on high-quality services and products for a one-year subscription of $30. It rates the top doctors and hospitals from the largest metropolitan areas, including Chicago, and also has a guide to health plans and dentists.
