How to Get Doctors to Wash Their Hands, Visual Edition
In our latest podcast “What Do Hand-Washing and Financial Illiteracy Have in Common?,” we revisited a topic we wrote about a few years back: how one hospital (Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles) has tried to increase the rate of hand hygiene among its doctors. In the podcast, chief medical officer Michael Langberg regretfully reported that his doctors, like many doctors, routinely failed to wash their hands. Cedars-Sinai came up with a series of computer screensavers and posters that, along with some other creative measures, significantly jacked up the hand-hygiene rate. Read More »
What Do Hand-Washing and Financial Illiteracy Have in Common? A New Freakonomics Radio Podcast
Our latest podcast is called “What Do Hand-Washing and Financial Illiteracy Have in Common?” (You can download/subscribe at iTunes, get the RSS feed, listen live via the media player above, or read the transcript below.) It explores the idea that most problems are solved by more education — except when they’re not.
You’ll hear Michael Langberg, chief medical officer at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, talk about why doctors there (and elsewhere) routinely fail to wash their hands despite the evidence suggesting they must:
Read More »LANGBERG: There’s something in the human condition that somehow disconnects what is really good evidence from personal choice and habit. And I don’t know why that is. I’m not a psychiatrist; my field is internal medicine. I just have the observation. Physicians are no different.
I Love These Hand-Dryers
Maybe Dyson should be making smartphones too, eh? They are so much fun to use that I wonder if people will be more likely to wash their hands in airport restrooms … Read More »
How to Open a Public-Restroom Door
Exiting a public restroom can be tricky. Touching a doorknob or push-plate means you take a chance of picking up a lot of terms. If you use a paper towel, you have to find someplace to throw it away. Read More »
Busting Docs Who Don’t Wash Their Hands
Here’s an interesting method of combating the hand-hygiene problem discussed at length in SuperFreakonomics: “A doctor enters a hospital room to examine a patient, but neglects to wash her hands. A special badge on her lab coat turns a deep shade of red as wireless computer components in the door, the soap dispenser and near the bed immediately relay information about the unwashed hands. The doctor is busted.” Read More »
Cleanliness Is Next to … Morality?
New research finds that the cleaner you feel, the more judgmental you’re apt to be. Read More »
Is This the Answer to Hospital-Acquired Infections?
Researchers may be able to identify individual bacteria sources. Read More »
Cold, Hard Cash as a Handwashing Incentive
Whenever you write a book, it’s interesting to see which parts of it people respond to en masse. With SuperFreakonomics, the global-warming chapter has certainly gotten its fair share of attention, and Levitt noted a lot of feedback about the perils of drunk walking. Read More »
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