Making hospitals safer one innovation at the time

DESPITE the fact, and probably because of the fact that hospitals are places where the highest concentration of sick and weak people can be found, there are certain health risks inherent to hospitalization.  That’s why even doctors will only recommend hospitalization when they feel it is absolutely necessary.  The numbers are compelling: in the US, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that 10 percent of all hospital patients contract Hospital Acquired Infections (HAIs), that is 1.7 million people a year.    These in turn account for 99,000 deaths a year in the United States alone.  Strictly speaking, an HAI is an infection that is contracted as a result of hospitalization, and patients who contract these would likely not have been infected otherwise.