With the new infection center that Treant opens on Wednesday, the hospital group in the North wants to be at the forefront of combating and preventing infectious diseases such as sepsis and viral hepatitis.
In the new center, Treant healthcare professionals are involved in detecting and treating infections and diseases caused by bacteria, viruses, parasites and fungi. The center is a collaboration between the departments of internal medicine/infectious diseases, infection prevention and medical microbiology. Treant’s hepatologists (liver doctors) also join in, as does the hospital pharmacy.
MRSA
“We are combining the forces and knowledge of these departments under one roof,” says Sander van Assen, internist-infectiologist at Treant. The center also includes a new nursing department with six beds, intended for patients with an infection, at the Scheper hospital location in Emmen. “Patients with complex, special and also resistant infections are admitted to this department. If an infection is your main problem, you will be treated here.” This concerns, for example, infectious diseases such as sepsis (blood poisoning), spinal infections and the hospital bacteria MRSA.
“Patients in this special nursing department are helped by a team specialized in infectious diseases. This improves the quality of care,” says Van Assen. The use of antibiotics is also closely monitored here. Van Assen: “If you use antibiotics too often and too many, they no longer work properly. Thanks to the new infection department, other departments in our hospital have and will continue to have more space for regular care.”
GPs happy
There is still much to be gained from the use of antibiotics, says Van Assen. In the case of a bacterial infection that makes a patient ill, the use of antibacterial medications is an obvious choice. But about 10 percent have an antibiotic allergy registered in their patient file.
“GPs and medical specialists often find it difficult to determine how they can treat these patients,” says Van Assen. “They are very happy that they can forward them to us.”
The infection center then examines whether the patients are actually allergic. “In the vast majority of cases this does not appear to be the case,” says Van Assen. “The allergic reaction they once had was actually a side effect of the antibiotics. In other cases, they were allergic before, but no longer.” Van Assen also often sees that it was previously incorrectly assumed that an allergy to one type of antibiotic automatically meant an allergy to other types.
More effective use of antibiotics
Thanks to this new knowledge, it is now believed among infectious disease specialists that not 10 percent of the population is allergic to antibiotics, but rather only 1 percent. Van Assen: “This means that we can be much more effective with the use of targeted antibiotics.” The center also examines all patients in the hospital to see whether they are still receiving the correct antibiotic. It makes a difference, says Van Assen, who points to research from last year that shows that Treant is at the top in terms of little antibiotic use.
There is also a place for people who suffer from conditions such as Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis and rheumatism, for which they take immune response suppressing medications. “These medications open the door to an infection,” says Van Assen. “We offer these patient groups vaccinations against diseases that are extra dangerous for them, even if they want to travel to distant countries.”
2023-09-27 04:31:00
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