Los Angeles Patients Suffer Injury from Preventable Hospital Infection
Los Angeles patients are often injured by infections which they get because they are in the hospital for treatment for another condition. The risk to a patient of contracting a new illness when seeking medical care may depend on the hospital where care is provided.
If a person is severely injured in a car crash, they may suffer significant injury such as a neck or back disk injury requiring hospitalization and surgery. Some patients contract infections while in the hospital which could make them worse and certainly would prolong recovery.
Each year an estimated 1.7 million hospital patients develop infections which adds thousands of dollars to the cost of treatment. Giving patients an appropriate antibiotic in the hour before surgery has been found to reduce infection risks, as has good hand-washing and other practices. Yet not all hospitals perform such preventive measures with consistency.
Results of a recent survey of Los Angeles Hospitals where patients receive preventative antibiotics one hour before surgery ranked Cedars-Sinai Medical Center as a top rated hospital with more than 95% of patients getting pre-operative antibiotics. At Valley Presbyterian Hospital only 35% of surgical patients received pre-op antibiotics.
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