As Care Shifts from Hospital to Home, Guarding against Infection Falls to Families

September 19, 2017

(STAT News) – As more medical care shifts from hospital to home, families take on more complex, risky medical tasks for their loved ones. But hospitals have not done enough to help these families, said Dr. Amy Billett, director of quality and safety at the cancer and blood disorders center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Boston Children’s Hospital. “The patient safety movement has almost fully focused all of its energy and efforts on what happens in the hospital,” she said. That’s partly because the federal government does not require anyone to monitor infections patients get at home.