CareFlash – More Than a Flash in the Pan

When friends or family end up in the hospital, it’s often difficult to know what to do, what the problems are, who will visit whom when.

CareFlash is a great site that helps educate and coordinate the experience when a loved one ends up in a hospital.

CareFlash provides a common place on the Internet, to and from which people may submit, retrieve and share information and well-wishes surrounding a loved one’s health circumstances. In the respective context of each community, we serve-up hundreds of 3-D healthcare animations on disorders, procedures and anatomical function, all produced with world-class quality and accuracy, and narrated in plain language. The animations are also available in Spanish and Arabic with more languages to come in 2008.

Best of all, it’s free. Check it out!

Going High Tech to Stop Infections

Dr. Carmeli

According to HealthNewsDigest, Prof. Yehuda Carmeli of Tel Aviv University, has developed a software system that help healthcare workers control and prevent infections in hospitals.  Says Prof. Carmeli:

“We stopped 45 percent of the primary hospital-borne organisms that attack patients from spreading.”

The system uses such things as e-mail alert, text messaging and other methods of online communication to keep the hospital staff appraised of possible infection threats within the hospital.

Because of the success he’s had, Prof. Carmeli has been invited to demonstrate his system at various institutions around the US.

Nose Swabbing Not All That

Staphylococci

Researchers are finding that nose swabbing to look for the MRSA superbug isn’t super effective at minimizing hospital infection.

Little wonder in some ways.  Since hospitals will most likely be punished in the future if someone gets an infection they didn’t have when they came in, the process of nose swabbing may have more to do with saving money than saving lives.

The solution, say researchers, is to implement more broad based infection control measures.