Excessive use of antibiotics and what you can do to help |
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What You Can Do to Improve the Quality of Health Care
It is not possible to eliminate infection as a complication of hospitalization because the management infrastructure and architectural design actually promotes this raging cluster epidemic. The routine movement of personnel from one patient to another in assembly line fashion lends itself to cross-contamination. Moreover, the broad-based failure to timely diagnose and appropriately treat the newly acquired infections with antibiotics that match the sensitivity test results has compounded the problem. Furthermore, infectious disease consultants and nurse epidemiologists are finding new strains of bacteria that are now resistant to a growing number of antibiotics.
Although scientists have yet to prove this theory, many researchers believe that this is the result of prescribing antibiotics on a large scale without proven sensitivity. Nonetheless, you can make a tremendous difference in reversing this trend if you simply insist that your doctor prescribe only those antibiotics that are proven effective against the particular infection being treated. In some cases, when it is prudent to start treatment before knowing the results of the culture, you should insist that the doctor follow with the culture report as soon as it is available and change the antibiotic if necessary. This is one area of medical treatment where you can prevent doctors and nurses from committing malpractice. |
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by T.Sharon
