Indiana Medical Malpractice Lawyers Concerned over Growing Trend of Reuse of Medical Products
As medical malpractice lawyers representing victims of negligence in Indiana, minimizing hospital infection rates has been high on our wish list. It therefore disturbs us that there is a growing trend in the healthcare industry to reuse single-use medical products like catheters, scissors and compression sleeves.
The healthcare industry is facing mounting pressure from the green brigade to cut down on the amount of waste it generates every year. Part of these efforts includes cutting down on the number of medical products that are used in hospitals every year. This has led to more and more hospitals choosing to reuse compression sleeves, surgical scissors and ultrasound catheters. These are meant to be single use products that must be discarded after the first use. However, as many as a quarter of all hospitals in the United States currently engage in reusing such products.
These measures have widespread support from environmental groups, because they reduce consumption and help minimize waste. Hospitals also encourage these moves because they translate into more cost savings. As usual, it falls back on medical malpractice attorneys in Indiana and around the country to object to practices that place patients at a high risk of contracting infections.
The pro-reuse lobby insists that if proper practices of sterilization and reuse are followed, these products can be used again with zero risk of infection. Unfortunately, as Indiana medical malpractice lawyers, we often see that inculcating safety and hygiene practices among hospital staff is a long and intensive process. Hand washing rates among doctors continue to be low in spite of sustained efforts by watchdog groups and health experts. In a situation like this, training staff to use the right sterilization and reuse processes is going to take a really long time.
Cutting costs must not come at the expense of patient safety. There are other ways to cut costs and minimize waste, and the healthcare industry must be investing in efforts to develop and refine these.
