Saving Lives: How a KwickScreen can Help you Save your Patients’ Lives
KwickScreen’s original primary aim was to tackle infection control and solve the issue of Healthcare Associated Infections (HCAIs). You may be wondering ‘Why is infection control deemed so important by KwickScreen?’. Here is why:
Patient Infections and Deaths
HCAIs are a very real threat for patients entering a hospital - a place they are meant to be going to get better. Some people will enter a hospital for nothing more than an open wound, contract a HCAI and end up never leaving. In England, 834,000 cases of HCAIs were recorded in 2016-2017 which accounted for 21% of all hospital bed days and a huge 28,500 patient deaths. This is so sad and unnecessary. We believed something had to be done!
Sadly, this is not just an issue for the UK! HCAIs are one of the top causes of deaths in the United States, affecting nearly 1.7 million patients per year and causing death in 98,000 of these patients (1 in 17).
Antimicrobial Resistance
We are currently facing the threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). AMR has been declared as “one of the top 10 global public health threats” according to the World Health Organisation. AMR arises because the microbes undergo genetic changes resulting in resistance to the medicines used to treat them. Classic bacterial examples often seen in a hospital setting are Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and C. difficile, both of which have been noted as ‘serious’ and ‘urgent’ threats to public health in the 2019 AR Threats Report, respectively. The big issue with AMR is that patients no longer respond to the treatments which can lead to severe illness and further spread of the resistant microbe through the hospital and into the general population.
Cost of HCAIs
The loss of family members and friends to HCAIs is heartbreaking, but this isn’t the only issue. HCAIs have been recorded to cost ~£2.7 billion in the UK per year. In addition, it is estimated that each infection costs $25,000 (£19,870) in the US. These extra costs arise due to the requirement for treatments, patient management and labour costs to cope with increase in length of patient stays, especially given HCAIs increase patient hospital stays by an average of 9 days.
Just to add to the cost, it’s not just patients who become infected with HCAIs. The 2016-2017 report states that these infections led to 79,700 days of absenteeism in front-line NHS healthcare workers. This leads to additional costs to replace absent staff with agency staff to ensure the hospitals have the capacity to care for all patients.
SO, how is KwickScreen tackling infection control to prevent HCAIs?
KwickScreens have a single, small, easy-to-clean touchpoint, localising the area on which microbes will accumulate on the screen. This means that regular cleaning of this small touchpoint is effortless. Granted, the whole screen will still acquire microbes throughout the day, however, it can be quickly wiped down with Clinell wipes for sanitation by the bedside.
Additionally, KwickScreens appear to reduce the cross-transfer of bacterial pathogens between beds. University College London Hospital (UCLH) conducted a clinical trial on 30 KwickScreens, using funding from Innovate UK. It was found that there is 8x more bacteria on a hospital curtain than on a KwickScreen, therefore, 8x more chance of becoming infected with a HCAI.
Hospital curtains need to be replaced by KwickScreens to save lives!