News - National
Study finds infection control problems at same-day surgery centers
Posted: Jun 8, 2010 2:18 PM by Greg Boyce
A new federal study finds many same-day surgery centers have serious problems with infection control.
Inspectors visited 68 centers in Maryland, North Carolina and Oklahoma. They saw health workers who didn't wash their hands. Some failed to wear gloves or clean medical devices properly. Experts say the findings suggest that lax infection practices may pervade the nation's more than 5,000 outpatient centers.
Patients at such facilities have procedures like foot surgery and go home the same day. The study was prompted by a hepatitis C outbreak in Las Vegas believed to be caused by unsafe injection practices at two clinics. The findings appear in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.
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