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Cell Phones May Spread Infections
CHaN_316 writes "Yahoo is running an article talking about how cell phones from health workers are helping spread dangerous infections in hospitals. 'They found that 12 percent of healthcare providers' cell phones were contaminated with [Acinetobacter baumannii]. The results are disturbing because [it] has the propensity to develop resistance to almost all available antibiotics ... Cell phones provide a large dry surface that allows survival of A. baumannii--it requires no nutrients ... [it] is found in intensive care units, and the mortality rate among infected patients is very high -- between 50 and 60 percent.' The hospital that conducted this research no longer allows the use of cell phones, and are switching to devices that don't require hand contact like pagers." So how long before someone develops a cell phone that can be dunked in alcohol or run through the autoclave to sterilize it?
Why wouldn't a pager require hand contact? I bet what he really meant to say was _head_ contact.
That would make a lot more sense.
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This isn't news. This is fear-based ratings pandering by the source.
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Well lets see here, send all the sick to one place, get the same subset of the population to treat them all and wierdly enough you get concentrations in infections (including all these wonderful antibiotic resistant/immune strains we are breeding with our idiotic farming and medical practices... but that's another rant for another day). Especially in and around those brave enough to be on the frontline as it were.
If you aren't sick, stay the hell away from hospitals or you will be.
Q.
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I thought people were not supposed to use cell phones in hospitals. Why are they even there?
Remember, Amateurs built the ark. Professionals built the Titanic
While working at a hospital.... how about putting the mobile in a transparent plastic bag, and discard the bag after use?
Seems fairly easy to implement.
- "They misunderestimated me."
Do you mean something like Nokia 6250? Anyways, at least Finnish hospitals don't allow GSM phones on their premises. Worry about mixing radio transmitters and heart monitors, I guess.
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Binaries may die but source code lives forever
A couple of months ago I overheard someone say: I 'll never get one of those camera phones. Just think of when my girlfriend asks, where are you? She will want me to send a picture. I'll never be able to go out again!
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The nasal passages of more than half the health care workers that work in a hospital for more than a year are colonized with MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus).
Banning cell phones is not the answer. Universal precautions is. Universal precautions includes cleaning your hands and instruments after every single patient contact. How many health care workers do that, do you suppose?
WTF? They simply concluded that 12% of the phones they looked at where infected with that thing - what you make of it is your choice. How is this "just another knee-jerk pogrom against a new technology, wasting money that could have been better spent elsewhere"?? Nuts.
Yeah but just remember all the telephone sanitizers ended up on the "c" ark :-)....You would think dr's would know better. I mean christ they scrub their hands raw but carry a cellphone thats been breathed all over and been in a non sterile enviroment around criticaly ill paitents. You can't teach COMMON SENSE!
"A towel is the most astounding Mind-boggleing useful thing in the universe, allways know where your towel is"
I am a nurse. Cell phones aren't the problem, people are the problem.
Want to stop the spread of the pathogens on your cell phone or _______ ? It's easy.
1. Wash your fscking hands before and after you examine any patient.
2. Don't use the device during an examination.
Problem solved.
You don't have to kill the little germies on the phone, just wash them off your hands, for %#^$&! sake.
The best way to do is to be.
Doesn't even have to be something in/from a hospital!
Some of the biggest spreaders of disease, even as simple as the common cold or the flu, right on up to SARS, are everyday items such as computer keyboards, regular twisted pair phones, (especially payphones!), and even coinage!
This is why properly washing your hands often is so important in stopping the spread of contagious diseases.
Infinite recursion looms...
Then we'd see the /. headline "Plastic Bags May Spread Infections." The infections aren't coming from the cellphone itself, but from whoever touches it, therefore the same problem will exist however the cellphone is covered.
(Duh. I can't believe I have to explain that one. Still, it was modded +5 Interesting so I suppose some folks just haven't got the ability to think about things for a microsecond or two.)
Dunking the user in alcohol has a number of merits though...:-)
I'm staggered that you can use mobile phones in American hospitals. They aren't allowed in the UK and from what I remember most of europe - they interfere with all the monitoring equipment.
If a girlfriend is that suspicious all the time, it's probably time to get a new girlfriend. If she's that suspicious all the time for _good reason_, she's probably going to be getting a new boyfriend anytime soon.
So, why would not they make a desk with UV lamp, where people can put their phones/PDAs/whatever else. Hard UV radiation is quite effective as a decontamination mechanism. In some countries (Russia, for example), UV lamp is used daily in examination rooms (while no humans are present, of course ;) ), to reduce amount of airborne contaminants in the air and on irradiated surfaces.
Not sure if it would harm the screen of cellphone (a simple UV protective transparent sticker would help) but all other surfaces would be clensed without problems. No?
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If the risk is brought to their attention, they wil react. Most are actuely aware of the special vector issues in a hospital. The banning of phones in the hospital was probably a little severe; just the knowledge of the risk would probably be enough to cause the MD's to take their own precautions.
There is a reason for everything. Sometimes that reason just sucks.
Because you touch the bathroom door, then you touch your cellphoene. You touch a patient, you touch your cellphone. You touch a dog, touch your cellphone.
And your wallet and keys should be cleaned too.