HAIs

Ben Taub General Hospital (BTGH) is a 575-bed public teaching hospital serving residents of Harris County, Texas. It is one of only two designated Level 1 Trauma Centers in Houston, Texas. The Trauma Surgical Intensive Care Unit (TSICU) is a 30-bed unit consisting of 24 open ward beds and six isolation rooms. Catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) are the most common of the healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) in all hospitals across the United States costing $565 million annually. The majority of these CAUTIs (50 percent to 75 percent) are preventable.

New research may help explain why hundreds of thousands of Americans a year get sick and tens of thousands die after bacteria get into their blood. It also suggests why some of those bloodstream infections resist treatment with even the most powerful antibiotics.

Each day, people rely on their local hospitals to heal them. But these hospitals are also where thousands will acquire dangerous and potentially lethal infections, adverse drug events, or other harms.