10 Investigates found many local hospitals have either poor enforcement – or no written policy at all – of how often medical professionals must change or clean their scrubs. A hidden-camera investigation – bolstered by interviews with medical professionals from numerous hospitals and medical facilities around Tampa Bay – revealed many individuals are allowed to come and go from some local operating rooms without ever changing their scrubs, an unnecessary risk according to 10 News medical analyst Dr. Jay Wolfson. "Who knows what they're carrying on (their scrubs)…they may not," said Wolfson, the associate vice president of Health Law, Policy, and Safety at USF Health. Wolfson acknowledged scrub-bound pathogens are extremely unlikely to infect someone out in the public. And most of the people wearing scrubs home from the hospital likely did not work in emergency room in the first place. But Wolfson's biggest concern was germs hitching a ride into the operating room on scrubs. If a doctor or nurse were to arrive for surgery in street clothes, he or she would have to change into clean scrubs. But in some local hospitals, if individuals arrive in scrubs worn from home, they can proceed straight into the operating room. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, hospital-acquired infections cause adverse effects in more than a million Americans a year and claim upwards of 100,000 lives a year. "That's like having a couple of 747s crash every single week in this country," Wolfson said. "We can't afford to be comfortable when it comes to patient safety." But while some local hospitals had strict policies mandating all personnel change into clean scrubs before entering the operating room – and again upon leaving - 10 Investigates found other hospitals could not provide a written policy on scrub use in the O.R. Many declined on-camera interviews. Wolfson pointed out the spread of Ebola within the walls of a Dallas hospital shows how little safety details can have big impacts. "This is a particularly fortuitous time because of the discussion and threat of Ebola for all of us to review and consider all of the things we do for prevention, promotion of public health and patient safety." The one thing almost all local doctors agree their counterparts need to do better to prevent diseases and infections. 10 Investigates found All-Children's Hospital has one of the area's strictest policy regulating scrub use in the operating room, with color-coded scrubs that cannot be worn out of the O.R. area. A hospital spokesperson says it reduces the risk of medical personnel tracking germs into the O.R., as well as reduce the risk of dangerous pathogens leaving the O.R. "It is something we have to pay very much attention to," said All-Children's Chief Patient Safety Officer, Dr. Brigitta Mueller. "The science says we have to protect these children, so we do everything we can." Moffitt Cancer Center told 10 Investigates that it provides – and launders - scrubs for anyone who works in the operating room, endoscopy/procedures department, sterile processing department, or interventional radiology. Those individuals are not allowed to take the scrubs out of the hospital. And Tampa General Hospital disposes of scrubs in several vending machines around the hospital so professionals can get clean ones each time - and swap out their dirty ones to be cleaned at no cost. But many hospitals trust the cleaning of all scrubs - including those from the operating room - to the individual health professionals who wear them. Of course, most workers who wear scrubs will never set foot in an operating room. And local hospitals all seemed to have comprehensive policies on the use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) in high-risk areas. Yet many of those same hospitals either couldn't - or wouldn't - provide their written policies on scrub use in the operating room. Opinions - and research - from the medical community have been mixed, with little evidence connecting scrub use to infections. A spokesperson for BayCare Health System told 10 Investigates, "we have carefully reviewed suggestions by organizations that advocate for institutional laundering of scrubs. We have discussed the topic repeatedly with infection control experts and we have studied our own infection rates, only to find that we cannot trace any infections to team members who wore outside scrubs. As new information becomes available, we will determine whether we need to make any adjustments to our processes." But Wolfson said he suspects the hospital-acquired infections are drastically under-reported and hospitals should do anything possible to limit exposure of outside elements to areas where open wounds are prevalent. "Without saying 'the sky is falling and we're at huge risk,'" Wolfson said, "We're at relative risk. And its time for us to re-examine policies that most of our hospitals don't even have." However, there was one risk that every person interviewed acknowledged needed more attention: hand-washing, which remains a frequently-ignored precaution by busy doctors and nurses. "We know that keeping hands clean is one of the most important things you can do to stop the spread of germs," Baycare Health Systems Spokeswoman Lisa Patterson wrote to 10 Investigates. "I hope you will share this message with your viewers; you can learn more about how "clean hands save lives" by visitingwww.cdc.gov/handwashing." "Complacency is one of the greatest dangers we face (in patient safety, public health, and clinical care)," Wolfson said. "You have to change hundreds of peoples' individual common sense habits! People don't like doing that, even if they know its good for them." source
