Coughs and Sneezes Spread Diseases - HAIwatch

Whilst it's pretty obvious one of my passions is gaming, what is probably less apparent is that my other passion is healthcare. Now, I'm wary of revealing where I work etc in this forum, whilst I recognise that you are all upstanding gentlemend/ladies of wit and the utmost decorum - sometimes I might slip my tongue too freely into the realm of uncertainty and in my profession one wrong word can get you a short sharp visit from the unemployment-fairy. So lets just say that I work in healthcare research, and leave it at that?

This morning I received an email from a Mrs Barbara Dunn asking if I would be interested in blogging about the drive to fight healthcare assisted infections. Working where I do, if there is one thing which is drilled into you it is the importance of infection prevention and control - so I found myself pretty sympathetic to the cause. Recent stories here in Britain have highlighted the need for an increasing focus on controlling and preventing infection, obvious examples are the MRSA hospital bourne infections, line-in infections and surgical site infections and the very recent swine-flu problems we have been having (although, I wouldn't believe everything you read in the papers on this subject). As a result our hospitals are now filled with "WASH YOUR HANDS!" signs, soap dispensers at the entrance to every ward, at the end of every bed and dotted along corridors and every new member of staff has to go through a fairly stringent Infection Prevention and Control training. As arduous as this may seem, it is for a good reason:

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), at any point in time, 1.4 million people worldwide suffer from infections acquired in hospitals.


A Centers for Disease Control (CDC) report published in March-April 2007 estimated the number of U.S. deaths from healthcare associated infections in 2002 at 98,987.


The risk of acquiring Healthcare-Associated Infections in developing countries is 2-20 times higher than in developed countries.
Afflicting thousands of patients every year, HAI often leads to lengthened hospital stays, increasing the likelihood of readmission, and adding sizably to the cost of care per patient.


Financially, HAIs represent an estimated annual impact of $6.7 billion to healthcare facilities, but the human cost is even higher. (HAIWatchNews.com)



The HAIwatch "Not on my Watch" website (sponsored by Kimberly-Clark) is an interesting one, it provides a central area into which a vast amount of information has been pumped. It has tools for healthcare providers, professionals and probably a lot of information relavent to the lay-man on how to stay safe if you are ever unlucky enough to have to visit a hospital. For up to date information on the subject Mrs Dunn also pointed me in the direction of http://haiwatchnews.com/.

Making healthcare a safer institution is something which is close to my heart, so I hope you'll forgive this somewhat off-topic post. Normal service will resume with the next post!



If you know me you'd know that if I receive what appears to be a completely sincere email, I will often interpret it as a trailhead and my puzzle-centres will go into overdrive. However, upon going through the information that was sent to me, I could find no hidden message, no binary, morse, ROTed words or pigpen codes. Disappoint. Turns out... TINAG but was something about which I was enthused. Although, you may note I couldn't help but slip a Theme Hospital reference in there...

Twitter Challenges Govt' Subpoena

linked from wired.co.uk

In my gollomphing around the net I came across this article on Wired.co.uk concerning Twitter's response to the recent subpoena they were issued for information on a number of key figures in the Wikileaks saga. Instead of simply allowing their databases to be opened up and scoured of the key information, Twitter challenged the gag order which came attached to the demands, they won and subsequently notified the persons involved that their information was going to be released. This action by Twitter allowed the persons involved (including wikileaks founder Julian Assange, accused leaker Pfc. Bradley Manning,  former WikiLeaks spokeswoman Birgitta Jonsdottir, and WikiLeaks activist Jacob Appelbaum) to challenge and attempt to quash the subpoena in court.

Wired.co.uk's Ryan Sigel states:

That's what makes Twitter's move so important. It briefly carried the torch for its users during that crucial period when, because of the gag order, its users couldn't carry it themselves. The company's action in asking for the gag order to be overturned sets a new precedent that we can only hope that other companies begin to follow....


...Even more remarkable, Twitter's move comes as a litany of companies, including PayPal, Mastercard, Visa, and Bank of America, follow the political winds away from the First Amendment, banning donations to WikiLeaks. And Amazon.com voluntarily threw the site off its hosting platform, even though there's nothing illegal in publishing classified documents.



By standing up for its users, Twitter showed guts and principles. Much of it is likely attributable to Twitter's general counsel Alexander Macgillivray. As security and privacy blogger Christopher Soghoian notes, Macgillivray was one of the first law students at Harvards' Berkman internet law centre and at in his previous job at Google "played a major role in getting the company to contribute takedown requests to chillingeffects.org."

I can't help but feel the bile rise in my gut, this whole WikiLeaks saga has raised the Orwellian fear in me and it's shown in stark releif just how powerless the little man can be if the government wishes him gone. It is laudable that Twitter has supported its users in such a way, and it makes me feel a little bit safer knowing at least the big T has our back.

Misfits: Best thing on the Telly

[WARNING MISFITS SPOILERS AHEAD]

There, I said it, I firmly believe that the E4 series Misfits is the best thing on the telly in the UK at the moment.
Its a very Brit-pop show to rival the epicness of the US hits Lost and Heroes, but it retains it's UK grit and tongue in cheek sense of humour - there aren't many shows that would have a character scream "I want to piss on your tits!" in the first episode. Short story synopsis: 5 youths are sent to do community service, crazy storm hits and they are all struct by lightning - they all gain superpowers: anyone who touches Alisha will immediately fall into a lust filled frenzy, Kurtis can turn back (and, as we discovered in recent episodes, forward) time, Simon can turn invisible, Nathan is immortal (omg Season1 ending spoiler) and Kelly can read minds.

What is so good about this series is that they don't go to flashy locations, there aren't a tonne of big explosions or expensive special effects - its all about the characters. At first they seem to be exactly what everyone thinks they are, just gobby youths who don't give a shit, but as the series progresses you realise each character is far deeper than that. Alisha (played by Antonia Thomas) is beautiful but struggling with a deep seated insecurity which she fills with sex and parties, Kurtis is riddled with guilt because he's thrown away a bright athletics career, Simon has issues with social situations, Nathan uses humour and insults to keep people away and Kelly has serious anger issues (so much so that she stamps her probation worker to death in the first hour).

All I can say is that the first series is AWESOME! If you haven't seen it I would highly recommend hopping over to 4od and taking a look. Even though if you've reached this far in the post then you've learned most of the twists for the end, but its worth doing anyway! The comedy is dry, often blue to the bluest degree (Nathan in particular) and hilarious. Similarly, it deals with some very dark issues such as sexual aggression, murder, drug abuse, religion, race and age.

If you've seen season one and you've missed the past few weeks of the new season, then you HAVE to head over to 4od to watch them. I have just watched the lastest episode and HOT DAMN is it good, lets just say that our masked man has just blown my tiny little mind.

Petulant Children Ruining a Good Cause

With whats recently been happening in the capitol over the past few days, I thought I'd try and deconstruct how I feel about the whole student protest debacle. I say deconstruct because as I set out in this post I actually don't know for definate how I feel about it, my feelings are mixed for a number of reasons and I'm hoping that going through them will help me work out how I feel:

1) I did a three year Sociology degree followed by a one year postgraduate Masters in Social Research Methodology. Although I received a loan for the first three years, I funded myself for my postgraduate studies - this was before the rise in tuition fees of a couple of years ago, and way before this proposal of a £9000 limit on the fees. I struggled to raise the funds to study for that extra year. I worked over my summer, scraped and saved, and then still had to borrow £5000 from family members. Knowing how much I struggled, I can't even comprehend how it must feel to be 17 years old with the prospect of possibly having to pay £9000 each year to study. I have come out of University with £20 000 worth of debt to the Government and £5000 loan to be paid back to the family, students going to one of the 9k Universities can expect upwards of £30 000+ worth of debt when they start their working lives.

2) On the other hand, I have friends who work in London. One of my University friends works in a building which overlooks one of the epicenters of the violence. Having spoken to her over the past couple of days, she told me how scared she was, how the violence erupting below was so unlike what she thought the protest was supposed to be like and how she has "no sympathy for students after the way they acted...".

3) The general pretention which surrounds even the most well meaning student protest kinda grinds on me. It ground on me in the years at Uni and it grinds on me now. My job takes me to the local University for a number of days each week, and one of the main things I notice each day (aside from the seething jealousy I feel that they are living the life I was naught but 12 months ago) is the idea that somehow being in the University environment empowers these people with knowledge the lay man just doesn't understand. At the protests on Wednesday, apparently one student was quoted comparing their plight to the anti-war protests of the 60s and 70s! No. Just no.

In general, I think the students have shot themselves in the foot. The protests won't be remembered for the cause, but for the actions of those few teens who took it too far. The UK press have slaughtered them (and, now the lecturers who support them) - whilst I wouldn't think twice about wiping certain parts of my body on the Daily Mail, I believe there are a great number of people who put a lot of stock with the rag. If there were fence sitters before these protests I believe now they may be lost to the Conservative garden. I think now I realise that whilst I support the cause, I believe it may now be lost, and without the cause there can be no effect, the protests were for nothing. Violence for violence sake.