Hospitals comingle infectious agents at their strongest with humans at their weakest. Proper relative humidity may be the greatest remaining underused weapon against HAIs.
People hospitalized are too often harmed by preventable medical errors during their in-patient stay. A patient gets the wrong dose or type of medication, contracts a new infection while in the hospital, gets a pressure sore while immobilized in bed, has surgery on the wrong part of their body, or falls in their room — these all are preventable events!
The exact toll of these errors on patient lives and hospital budgets is very difficult to quantify. However, conservative studies report that 33 out of every 100 patients experience some type of medical error during their hospitalization. Of these, 18% will get a new infection from their hospital experience.