Public health professor lectures in China: Private rooms found to reduce the risk of hospital-acquired infections
August 15, 2016 • Uncategorized
In a study of 1.2 million patients treated at 292 Texas hospitals over a one year time period during 2013, Liam O’Neill, PhD, Associate Professor of Health Management and Policy at the UNTHSC School of Public Health, and a student cohort have found that hospitals with mostly private rooms had a lower risk for central-line patient infections, acquired through tubes or catheters used for testing or to carry nutrients or medicine through the bloodstream.
Dr. O’Neill recently presented this data at the Service System Engineering Conference at the School of Economics and Management at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, where local media covered his talk.
“The findings showed that regardless of whether patients were assigned to a private room,” Dr. O’Neill said, “those who were cared for at hospitals that offered a higher percentage of private rooms overall measured lower in hospital acquired infections.”
“This supports using the ‘percentage of private rooms’ ratio as a structural measure of hospital quality,” he said.
Dr. O’Neill also recently shared these findings at the AcademyHealth Conference in Boston, a national organization for health services and policy research professionals.
SPH Health Management and Policy doctoral student Sae-Hwan Park has been a partner in this study.
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