More Evidence That Hand Washing Really Works

One of the easiest ways to get a potentially fatal infection is if you have a central-line catheter put in; as many as 28,000 patients die each year from infections caused by the insertion of a central-line catheter.

The current New England Journal of Medicine reports on a study conducted in Michigan hospitals to see if increased vigilance on hand hygiene would cut down on the incidence of catheter infections.

And it worked, big-time. “The results are pretty breathtaking,” Dr. Peter Pronovost, a Johns Hopkins researcher and the lead author of the study told the Baltimore Sun. “The numbers of infections went down quickly and they stayed down.”