When people are very sick, injured, or having a baby, many head to the hospital, where they hope to receive the best treatment in buildings that have the space, equipment, and personnel to support the practicing clinicians. We now know there is another dimension to hospitals; they can be extremely dangerous places. The severity of the danger in hospitals became undeniably clear when the Institute of Medicine published To Err is Human in 1999. This report revealed that many thousands of patients in U.S. hospitals were injured or died each year because of preventable infections called healthcare-associated infections (HAIs), which were acquired during their hospital visits.
Part of the reason that HAIs are so deadly is that they are often caused by bacteria that have become resistant to antibiotics. Unfortunately, hospitals have become reservoirs of these virulent bacteria. How has this happened, and what can building managers and mechanical engineers do to help save patient lives?