Warning Signs at Entrances of Hospital

Our small rural hospital where I work now has signs posted at all entrances which have large stop signs on them and gives instructions as to what to do if you come from one of 5 areas of W. Africa or if you suspect you may have ebola.

I think this is a good idea. I didn't get a real good look at the complete message of the sign. Will check it out further tomorrow. Hopefully all hospitals across the country will be putting up ebola warning signs to inform/educate the public at all entrances to hospitals. It's not going to hurt anything to bring about public awareness and special instructions.

With winter coming up, we just don't know how all of this is going to play out. Our flu signs haven't gone up yet this year and I don't know if they will.

Don't confuse cause and effect, Nergal.










fnord

Nergal - I know what you mean. Every time I go to the hospital there seem to be a lot of sick people there. Like, more than you see elsewhere. Makes sense...

Sleusha - I was at the docs yesterday and I noticed a sign like that at the check in desk.

http://journals.lww.com/journalpatientsafety/Fulltext/2013/09000/A_New,_Evidence_based_Estimate_of_Patient_Harms.2.aspx
"Using a weighted average of the 4 studies, a lower limit of 210,000 deaths per year was associated with preventable harm in hospitals. Given limitations in the search capability of the Global Trigger Tool and the incompleteness of medical records on which the Tool depends, the true number of premature deaths associated with preventable harm to patients was estimated at more than 400,000 per year. Serious harm seems to be 10- to 20-fold more common than lethal harm."

These numbers would rank death by medical mistake somewhere between the 3rd and 5th most common cause of death in the USA.

Signs themselves are a very good idea. The question, however, is will people oblige. With all the Ebola scare and panic that media are doing, people are divided into two groups. Those who sneeze after sitting on their bare asses on the snow - running scared and being sure it's Ebola and those who can really have it but discard that idea and believe flu antibiotics "will work".