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Hospital-acquired infections are the 4th largest killer in the
United States. Your chance of picking up an infection while
hospitalized is one in 20. Most of these Infections are
preventable
How and
why these kits came about
Watch
this report on Pat’s initiative on KABC-TV
After
losing my father to a C-diff infection in 2006, I lobbied for
legislation in my home state (RI) to mandate the reporting of
hospital-acquired infections, and launched an informational
website. As a result, many people reached out to me to share
their own stories of losing a loved one to an infection
contracted in the hospital. Most, like me, felt blind-sided by
an event they had previously known little about.
Most of
these infections are preventable…but in today’s busy hospital
environments – with multi-tasking staff, an increasingly sick
population and germs that defy antibiotics – infections happen.
Hospitals
are working to make things better, and consumer advocates are
trying to spread the word and change laws. This work is crucial,
but I found it excruciatingly slow. With each day that passes,
271 more people die of infection in the hospital. While we wait
for institutional change, how could I help other families avoid
my experience?
Months of
research and consultations with infection control specialists,
caregivers and patients showed me something crucial was missing:
the patients are not routinely being engaged to help solve the
problem. I believe most of us patients - and families of
patients - would be proactive partners in our care “team”, if
information and tangible action steps were made available to us
(a mandate we’re now working on in my state). My answer was to
create a simple, affordable “education and intervention in a
box”, which could give others the benefit of everything I
learned about hospital-acquired infection (and would use myself
to help a loved one).
As of May
2009, patients who have used our kits in the hospital (in 15
states and counting), say the nursing staff has been very
supportive. Patients also liked feeling some measure of control,
in an environment where they usually have so little. I’d like to
think patients having taken this proactive approach also helped
lead to their best possible health outcome.
Our
hospital caregivers are among the world’s most compassionate and
hardworking people. But in an imperfect world, it takes only one
deviation from perfection to put you at risk.
Asking questions, participating in the process, assisting care
providers by offering informed feedback…you can have a proactive
role in ensuring optimal care.
Be Well!
Pat Mastors
Creator
The
Empowered Patient™
Infection
Defense Kits
    
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