Strict hand hygiene and other practices shortened stays and cut costs and mortality in a pediatric intensive care unit.

Efforts to reduce infections acquired during a hospital stay through improvements in the quality of care have had measurable results in many hospital settings. In pediatric intensive care units, the right quality interventions can save lives and money. We found that improving practices of hand hygiene, oral care, and central-line catheter care reduced hospital-acquired infections and improved mortality rates among children admitted to a large pediatric intensive care unit in 2007-09.

Probiotic administration and the incidence of nosocomial infection in pediatric intensive care: a randomized placebo-controlled trial.

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of probiotics in reducing the rates of nosocomial infection in pediatric intensive care.

Design: Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.

Setting: A 16-bed pediatric intensive care unit in a university-affiliated children's hospital.