The effect of hospital infection control policy on the prevalence of surgical site infection in a tertiary hospital in South-South Nigeria

Background:

Surgical site infections (SSIs) are a significant cause of morbidity, emotional stress and financial cost to the affected patients and health care institutions; and infection control policy has been shown to reduce the burden of SSIs in several health care institutions. This study assessed the effects of the implementation of the policy on the prevalence of SSI in the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, Nigeria.

Patients and Methods:

A review of the records of all Caesarean sections carried out in the hospital, before and 2 years after the implementation of the infection control policy was conducted. Data collected include the number and characteristics of the patients that had Caesarean section in the hospital during the period and those that developed SSI while on admission.

Results:

The proportion of patients with SSI decreased from 13.33% to 10.34%, 2 years after the implementation of the policy (P-value = 0.18). The implementation of the policy did not also result in any statistically significant change in the nature of the wound infection (P-value = 0.230), in the schedule of the operations (P-value = 0.93) and in the other predisposing factors of the infections (P-value = 0.72); except for the significant decrease in the infection rate among the un-booked patients (P-value = 0.032).

Conclusion:

The implementation of the policy led to a small decrease in SSI, due to the non-implementation of some important aspects of the WHO policy. The introduction of surveillance activities, continuous practice reinforcing communications and environmental sanitation are recommended to further decrease the prevalence of SSI in the hospital.     

A major new alliance in Australian healthcare: the Australian consensus framework for ethical collaboration in the healthcare sector

The 'Australian Consensus Framework for Ethical Collaboration in the Healthcare Sector' (ACF) is an Australian initiative aimed at countering dysfunction and growing mistrust in the health sector through the development of a cross‐sectoral consensus framework. The development of this framework arose from Australia's involvement in the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperative (APEC) and has since become the largest of its kind internationally, with over 70 signatories representing professional bodies, industry organisations, hospital and health services associations, regulators and patient and advocacy groups. In this article, we describe and critique the framework and outline its implementation.     

Throwing Away the Key: The Ethics of Risk Assessment for Preventive Detention Schemes

Preventive detention schemes that aim to protect the community from certain ‘dangerous’ individuals have long existed. While risk assessment is now pervasive in the management and treatment of many individuals, it raises particular issues when a person's liberty is at stake on the basis of what that person might do. This R.G. Myers Memorial Lecture addresses the ethical issues raised by mental health practitioners providing risk assessments for legislative schemes that involve the deprivation of liberty. It will focus in particular on Australian post-sentence preventive detention schemes for sex offenders that have been held by the United Nations Human Rights Committee to breach fundamental human rights. However, the ethical issues discussed also have repercussions for civil commitment laws that enable the detention of those with severe mental or intellectual impairments.     

Physical therapists’ perception of workplace ethics in an evolving health-care delivery environment: a cross-sectional survey

Physical therapists are trained and obligated to deliver optimal health care and put patients first above all else. In the changing health-care environment, health-care organizations are grappling with controlling cost and increasing revenues. Moral distress may be created when physical therapists’ desire to provide optimal care conflicts with their organization’s goals to remain financially viable or profitable. Moral distress has been associated with low perception of ethical environment, professional burnout, and high turnover in organizations. This study identified groups who may be vulnerable to low perception of organizational ethical environment and identified self-reported strategies to remedy these perceptions. An ethics environment questionnaire was mailed to a random sample of 1200 physical therapists in Georgia. Respondents (n = 340) were analyzed by age, workplace setting, and position in organization. Therapists working in skilled nursing/assisted living environments scored the lowest on the questionnaire and voiced concerns regarding their ethical work environments. Owners and executives perceived their organizations to be more ethical than front-line clinicians. Respondent concerns included high productivity standards, aggressive coding/billing policies, decreased reimbursement, and increased insurance regulation. Possible solutions included more frequent communication between management and clinicians about ethics, greater professional autonomy, and increased training in business ethics and finance.     

生物医学前沿中的伦理问题

本文在讨论科学技术与伦理学关系、生命伦理学基本原则以及道德与伦理学之间的异同后,探讨了人的克隆和干细胞研究、基因治疗、生殖遗传学、异种移植、生物医学和临床研究中的伦理问题。     

62,406 and Counting

What will we remember, as scholars, practitioners, policy-makers, educators, and citizens, about this acute phase of the catastrophe in the United States? The shocking federal failure concerning testing? That the first shortage was not of ventilators but protective gear? How infection rates and deaths in communities of color, immigrant neighborhoods, and nursing homes mercilessly exposed the relationship between social inequalities and health inequities? I hope we will remember that the field of bioethics did good work under pressure, learned that public health ethics and global health ethics are about securing the conditions for decent lives and decent work as well as saving lives, and committed ourselves to progress on the problem of inequality.