I didn’t put this in the Duh Study category, but it is rather obvious, I would think: “Queen’s University study concludes private rooms are safer.”
Back in “the old days,” many hospitals didn’t have private rooms and patients were mostly in wards – a large room with bed after bed, lining the walls. They had male 
wards and female wards. Then, wards became smaller and four-bedded rooms were more the norm, along with semi-private (two-bedded rooms) and private rooms.
Hospitals now are often built to limit shared rooms as much as possible, for patient privacy and to limit the spread of disease. A study, just published in the on-line version of the American Journal of Infection Control, reports that having a roommate or roommates increases your risk of catching an infection or infectious disease.
This may not have been a big issue in years gone by, but with the rising concerns of superbugs becoming stronger and more prevalent, it is important to try to eliminate as many risky situations as possible. And, if this means making all hospital rooms private, then maybe this is the way to go.
An all-private room facility isn’t cheap and it is more difficult for the nursing staff to monitor all the patients if they’re not adequately staffed, but the cost of treating the so-called superbugs and the economic cost (lost wages, for example) may become astronomical.
According to the study’s authors:
“If you’re in a two, three or four-bedded room, each time you get a new roommate your risk of acquiring these serious infections increases by 10 per cent,” says Dr. Zoutman, professor of Community Health and Epidemiology at Queen’s. “That’s a substantial risk, particularly for longer hospital stays when you can expect to have many different roommates.”
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Image: PhotoXpress.com
Post from: Blisstree