How do you chose a hospital - MRSA concerns

[Denise in Florida]

Quick background - My dad's friend went into the hospital and ended up with a MRSA infection. She is my dad's live together lady friend, they are both in their 80's and would lose substantial funding if they got married. If any one has an easier way to express Joyce's relationship to me please let me know. I like her a lot, she isn't a mom figure, Joyce and Dad have been together for about 5 years.

 

Okay that wasn't a quick background, sorry, :lol:. Joyce went into the hospital to have her gall bladder removed, she ended up with pneumonia and a MRSA infection. She is home now and seems to be improving.

 

Now my sister needs an elective surgery and my dad is really worried about infections. Is there a simple way available to the public, preferably online, to research a hospital's infection rate?

 

Thanks for any help you can provide. Sorry for the rambling.

[Jennifer3141]

MRSA is in every hospital in the country. And nursing homes and retirement communities, etc. etc.

 

Some hospitals are better at managing it than others but it is everywhere there are people.

 

Watch the staff wash their hands. If they do a quick dip, ask them to rewash. Even if you get a hospital with a lower infection rate, one stupid nurse or doctor who doesn't wash/glove up properly and it's all for naught anyway.

 

Make sure your sister is as healthy as possible when she goes in and take her home ASAP. She will probably be exposed but healthy people are able to fight it off. Your father's companion was probably weaker than your sister systemically prior to her hospitalization.

[dansamy]

Honestly, she may have been colonized with MRSA prior to hospitalization. We've seen a huge upswing in community-acquired MRSA in recent years. And to /agree with Jennifer above: MRSA is everywhere. In every hospital, MD office and LTC facility. It's also in our communities. It's no longer an exclusively hospital-acquired infection.

 

Medicare's website should be helpful.

Edited August 14, 2011 by dansamy

[bzymom]

I don't know of a database you could search. I can only tell you my mom had MRSA during every hospital or convalescent stay. We asked caregivers to be sure to wash up if we did not see them do so, kept boxes & boxes of gloves in the rooms for all to use. Did not matter.

 

Wishing your sister good health.

[kalanamak]

MRSA is in every hospital in the country. And nursing homes and retirement communities, etc. etc.

 

Some hospitals are better at managing it than others but it is everywhere there are people.

 

Watch the staff wash their hands. If they do a quick dip, ask them to rewash. Even if you get a hospital with a lower infection rate, one stupid nurse or doctor who doesn't wash/glove up properly and it's all for naught anyway.

 

Make sure your sister is as healthy as possible when she goes in and take her home ASAP. She will probably be exposed but healthy people are able to fight it off. Your father's companion was probably weaker than your sister systemically prior to her hospitalization.

 

:iagree::iagree:

[Jennifer3141]

I don't know if hospitals are required to make their MRSA infection rates "known." And how you you count a hospital's cases? Do you ding the hospital record if they admit someone from a nursing home with MRSA? And community based MRSA is growing like crazy so you could just get it from picking your child up from daycare or grocery shopping...

 

I do know that there are hospitals DH thinks are gross in part because their infection rates are ridiculous.

[chepyl]

My daughter has had 3-4 MRSA infections and never been hospitalized. You can pick it up anywhere. Hers was a skin infection, and we passed it back and forth a couple of times before we finally go rid of it, then she had a few other outbreaks. We finally got our cleaning and disinfecting process down and stopped the reinfections.

 

My mom had a minor surgery and had to have a pre-surgery MRSA test. If she had a post-surgical infection, they wanted to know if she already had the bacteria in her system or if she picked it up in the hospital.

 

Check on the hospitals policies and procedures regarding MRSA.

[Nakia]

MRSA is in every hospital in the country. And nursing homes and retirement communities, etc. etc.

 

Some hospitals are better at managing it than others but it is everywhere there are people.

 

Watch the staff wash their hands. If they do a quick dip, ask them to rewash. Even if you get a hospital with a lower infection rate, one stupid nurse or doctor who doesn't wash/glove up properly and it's all for naught anyway.

 

Make sure your sister is as healthy as possible when she goes in and take her home ASAP. She will probably be exposed but healthy people are able to fight it off. Your father's companion was probably weaker than your sister systemically prior to her hospitalization.

 

Exactly!

[dansamy]

My daughter has had 3-4 MRSA infections and never been hospitalized. You can pick it up anywhere. Hers was a skin infection, and we passed it back and forth a couple of times before we finally go rid of it, then she had a few other outbreaks. We finally got our cleaning and disinfecting process down and stopped the reinfections.

 

My mom had a minor surgery and had to have a pre-surgery MRSA test. If she had a post-surgical infection, they wanted to know if she already had the bacteria in her system or if she picked it up in the hospital.

 

Check on the hospitals policies and procedures regarding MRSA.

 

A lot of hospitals are resorting to a pre-operative MRSA screening in self-defense. Insurers and Medicaid/Medicare are refusing to pay for care of conditions the patient acquired while hospitalized. The hospitals resort to using an MRSA screening (a swab from your nares, groin or axilla) to prove that the MRSA you were infected with is what you brought with you.

 

And don't shake hand with the doctor. I've rarely seen one of them wash their hands when coming out of a patient's room.

[Jennifer3141]

When DD was about 5 days old, DH came home from the hospital and said, "I'm exhausted! We had about 50 old people today all battling some really resistant MRSA. What a nightmare!"

 

I grabbed DD and ran out the back door with DH screaming, "You were just at that hospital!!!" all the way.

 

It's too bad hospitals are so gross. They need fewer sick people there. :D

[soonermomma]

My son had to be hospitalized because of a severe MRSA abscess in his groin when he was 16 months old. Children's Hospital explained to us that MRSA is everywhere and usually always found on peoples skin as well as everywhere else. His started with a teenie tiny scratch one morning (likely from his fingernail) to being a HUGE swollen abscess by that afternoon. He was hospitalized for a week and extremely sick. They did give us some things to do as precaution to keep us and our other children to keep from getting it. It worked, as none of the rest of us got it. They had us swab Bactraban (a prescription antibiotic) in our noses 4 times a day. We washed hands like crazy. We bleached the bathtub after each use and we washed the kids bodies in Hibaclens (buy at the pharmacy) three times a week. I also wore gloves when i changed his dressing or his diaper until the infection was completely gone. I am also totally anal now about scrapes, cuts or open sores. If any of the kids, my dh or I get one it is immediately cleaned, coated with antibiotic ointment, and covered with a bandaid or bandage.

 

It would be a great idea for your sister to buy a bottle of Hibaclens and wash her body with is a couple of times before surgery, and it wouldn't hurt to use it after either.

[OnTheBrink]

Patient's charts are notated if the patient has had MRSA. If it's known, the patient is isolated from the get-go. I don't believe the charts are flagged for statistical purposes. I know we don't flag them at the hospital I work for. All charts are processed the same way.

 

All that said, it's true that MRSA is everywhere. What you want is a hospital that implements strict hand-washing and infection control procedures. But, there is no guarantee and it's impossible to find a place that is entirely MRSA-free.

[Tawlas]

My daughter has had 3-4 MRSA infections and never been hospitalized. You can pick it up anywhere. Hers was a skin infection, and we passed it back and forth a couple of times before we finally go rid of it, then she had a few other outbreaks. We finally got our cleaning and disinfecting process down and stopped the reinfections.

 

My mom had a minor surgery and had to have a pre-surgery MRSA test. If she had a post-surgical infection, they wanted to know if she already had the bacteria in her system or if she picked it up in the hospital.

 

Check on the hospitals policies and procedures regarding MRSA.

 

My daughter too. Apparently it's occurring more and more frequently outside of hospitals.

[kalanamak]

Patient's charts are notated if the patient has had MRSA. If it's known, the patient is isolated from the get-go.

 

In endemic areas, the isolation policy is being dropped. Didn't help. Gosh, I remember the days of full body covering. It was terrible for the patient. They'd get ignored because no one had the time to put on a plastic suit of armor before going in.

[RanchGirl]

Denise, I think I would just call her your dad's girlfriend. And I would buy a bottle of tea tree oil for your sis and suggest she use it on any cut.

[LidiyaDawn]

Denise, I think I would just call her your dad's girlfriend.

 

That, or wife if that's how he refers to her. :) [my mother and "the man she lives with" {just using for this sentence} refer to each other as husband and wife, and I refer to him as my stepfather]

 

I've no comment about the "MRSA" thing because I don't really know what it is. Some sort of infection thing...

[Terabith]

So, if one was going to have surgery to turn one's coffee table books into trade paperbacks, and some surgeons do it outpatient and others keep you overnight, should you push to have it done outpatient?

[chepyl]

I bathe dd in hibaclense any time she gets a red bump or simple like bump! All cuts get cleaned, triple antibiotics and bandages for until I am sure there is no infection!

[prairiewindmomma]

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Edited November 10, 2021 by prairiewindmomma

[Tiramisu]

Is it safe to wash an open cut with it?

[LauraQ]

MRSA is in every hospital in the country. And nursing homes and retirement communities, etc. etc.

 

WSS. I would check the surgeon's records. I'm telling you I worked with one surgeon in the ED once, on his last day at our facility (he was kicked out for bad practice and high infection rates), and I can tell you that there is a REASON his patients had insanely high post-op infection rates!!! (Yes, we wrote him up just to create the documentation, but he was already out the door) And you know what's worse? Once you've been cut into by one surgeon, it's nearly impossible to get another surgeon to take over if you have complications. They just won't touch another surgeon's work no matter what, but especially if you've had an infection complication because they don't want the liability and don't want to get sucked into a nightmare. Very sad.

[Denisemomof4]

MRSA is in every hospital in the country. And nursing homes and retirement communities, etc. etc.

 

 

 

:iagree: My mother was in the ER every 2 weeks or so for MONTHS on end. I always took her to the same one. Before I brought her home to live with us, she lived in an assisted living facility and was regularly transported to the ER. Most times she went to the ER she was also admitted from several days for up to two weeks. Two weeks was not uncommon at all. She was diabetic and got stuck with needles several times per day, not to mention that she was ALWAYS hooked up to IV's.

 

She only got MRSA once. It was at my favorite hospital and it was due to an IV. I felt awful that I had to bring her back two days later after she had gotten home. :crying: I felt like my mom was a human pin cushion but my sister had medical POA so I was powerless to change. My poor mom was poked and cried so much. :crying:

 

Can I share a funny? This last time Mom went to the ER I got locked out of the bus! We had a bus that sat....... I don't know..... 12 or 15 people, it looked like those small special needs buses but was white and had a wheelchair lift and I could lock mom's wheel chair in place in it. Anyway, I locked the keys in the bus!!! I had the ONLY set! I was distraught and beyond burnt out with caring for my mother and I just wasn't thinking right. I called my husband in hysterics, called my sister in hysterics, then my BIL got on the phone and told me that I could break in through the wheelchair lift and squeeze between the lift and the top of the bus door to get in. Well, as I was straddling that lift, I just panicked about dropping down! And security and other people saw me stuck on that lift for several minutes.:lol: When security turned around to help me, I told them I was fine.:lol::When I finally DID drop, I went and got security to have them remove all the traffic so I could get out without running into a sign on the ceiling.:lol:what a mess!!!

 

And I had to return two days later due to MRSA. :svengo: At least by then I knew where to park so I wouldn't have to deal with ceiling signs.:tongue_smilie:

[smillard00]

I had knee surgery in May. Beforehand, I had a nasal swab for MRSA and was positive. It's everywhere these days. My surgeon had me use the nasal antibiotic ointment for MRSA for a week before surgery and a week after. I also had to bathe using a mixture of half Hibiclense-half water for the week before surgery and a few weeks after surgery until my incision was closed. You mix it in a little squeeze bottle (the peri bottles that you use after childbirth are great for this, but get a new one). Squirt it on a wash cloth and bathe the cleanest parts of the body first moving to the dirtiest parts last. I didn't use it on my face, though. I had the special ointment to use on my incision as well. Don't re-use towels or pajamas. Wash your sheets a lot more often. Sanitize the bathtub and bathroom surfaces. I also had antibiotics during surgery and took some extra vitamins before and after surgery as I healed. All of this worked and I avoided infection. In fact, my skin felt even healthier than normal. I now keep Hibiclense on hand so that if anyone gets any sort of bumps we can make sure it doesn't turn into an infection.

 

An idea for choosing a hospital--you could ask any nurses you know if they know of any big problems you should avoid. They will usually have a good idea what is going on in the local hospitals.

 

And for the person asking if you can use it on a cut--I was using it on a surgical incision, so I'm guessing it's OK. But diluting it like I did might help with that. Oh, and I liked the version that was clear and had a different name on the bottle better than the red version in the green bottle, but the red version is easier to find. The clear version has better "suds" and feels a little more like using body wash.

[Medstudent]

MRSA is everywhere. At my hospital, there's a policy of using hand-sanitizer before and after seeing a patient, and washing our hands before and after doing an actual procedure. But MRSA lives in our sinus cavities, for the most part. And is very infectious. So I may wash my hands all I want, but if the sleeve of my white coat touches a patient, or I don't use the room-specific stethoscope, or I don't wear a sterile gown- never mind. Patients' families also spread it around. You don't feel the need to wear a gown and gloves with your child or have a problem kissing him, you suddenly have MRSA on you. You go to the cafeteria and sneeze on someone or shake someone's hand, and he/she visits a loved one...there you go. So yeah, MRSA isn't going to be totally removed from a hospital no matter how many precautions we put in place. Thankfully, we can still treat it.

[Denise in Florida]

Thank you so much for all the replies. I will talk to my sister about preparing for the surgery and give her the cleansing advice for after. I appreciate all the information. Wow, I had no idea MRSA was so prevelant.

 

I can't be there to help her (or my dad's friend). They live in Arizona and I live in Florida. I know one of the reasons my dad worries so much is because if my sister has problems there will really not be anyone there to help her. She and her dh live 4 hours from Phoenix (rural, very little health care) the surgery will be in Phoenix and she plans to recover either at dad's place or in a hotel for 4 or 5 days until she can drive home. Her dh must stay at home to work.

 

Thank you also for the advice what to call Joyce. :001_smile: She is very nice and I like her, she and my dad have a place together but will not be getting married. I usually say 'dad's lady friend'.

[Tiramisu]

And for the person asking if you can use it on a cut--I was using it on a surgical incision, so I'm guessing it's OK. But diluting it like I did might help with that. Oh, and I liked the version that was clear and had a different name on the bottle better than the red version in the green bottle, but the red version is easier to find. The clear version has better "suds" and feels a little more like using body wash.

 

As a follow-up, I just wanted ask a really stupid question.

 

Is it best to use hibiclens in the shower, diluting it as you describe, and then rinsing it or is it better to leave it for a short while on the skin and then rinse? Before dd had surgery, we had to rub the incision area with a special wipe for a certain amount of time.

[Twilight Woods]

A lot of hospitals are resorting to a pre-operative MRSA screening in self-defense. Insurers and Medicaid/Medicare are refusing to pay for care of conditions the patient acquired while hospitalized. The hospitals resort to using an MRSA screening (a swab from your nares, groin or axilla) to prove that the MRSA you were infected with is what you brought with you.

 

And don't shake hand with the doctor. I've rarely seen one of them wash their hands when coming out of a patient's room.

 

:iagree: