Typhoid Mary, we miss you. Well, not really… we just miss the fact that there was only one of you. These days we have a whole fleet. (And no, I’m not talkin’ enema, here. I’m not sure why GiggleMed readers always revert to middle school humor, but c’mon… I’m trying to be serious here.) If you thought Typhoid Mary had issues, check out C. diff Clarice.

It’s time to spice up your infection control campaign with humor. One of two things is happening for you: (A) Your hand washing numbers are still in the toilet, or (B) You are having awesome success. If your numbers are in the toilet, what you’re trying isn’t working. Try humor. And if your numbers are awesome, it undoubtedly came with some effort – so show a little appreciation to the people in the trenches.

In short, show them this:

Feel free to use this image in your talks and presentations (as long as you include the attribution to GiggleMed.com). Just right click on the image & choose “Save As…” (PC) or “Save Image As…” (Mac).

Hand washing is, of course, a major concern in the healthcare setting. Too often, though, the infection control campaigns that hospitals and large organizations role out are boring, dry, or even counter-productive (when using negative social proof – “Only 40% of our physicians are using proper hand washing techniques”).

If you really want to control infection, improve hand washing technique, increase compliance, etc… then stop being so stuffy about it. You can be boring or you can be effective.
If you want effective infection control, try something people will remember.

Feel free to use this image in your talks and presentations (as long as you include the attribution to GiggleMed.com). Just right click on the image & choose “Save As…” (PC) or “Save Image As…” (Mac). By the way, watch for the new GiggleMed.com exclusive members only area. Coming very soon. (Why am I mentioning it here? (1) To get all of the people asking me about it off of my back, (2) You will have access to hundre...

Hospital acquired infection, healthcare associated infection… the name keeps changing, but who cares what we call it (as long as we keep the abbreviation the same – HAI – for the sake of The Literature and all of these signs we’ve made).

Healthcare associated infection is, of course, a huge concern. Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), catheter-associated infections (central lines, Foleys, etc), C. diff, MRSA, and many others (here’s a HAI list from the CDC).

At GiggleMed.com, we applaud the efforts of Kimberly-Clark Corporation in creating the HAI Watchdog Community (but not so much in the sturdiness of the Scott toilet paper my wife bought in bulk from Sam’s… that’s a gripe for another day) as it seems to be one of the better efforts at reducing such infections without instilling fear in the masses that we’re being invaded.

But of course, we think one of the best ways to educate people and influence them to change for the better, is through humor. So naturally, we changed some o...

OK. This is disgusting…

I posted a question in Twitter where I asked people what they thought was growing on top of those hand gel dispensers. And a whole bunch of people sent me back some disgusting stories.

Not a week later… a friend of mine sees this (below) and sends me a picture from his iPhone. He had just finished seeing a patient in isolation for C.diff and almost swiped his hand across the top of someone’s drink that was resting on the isolation cart.

It got me thinkin’… maybe I should make pre-formatted PDFs for printing on stickers. Sure, we can write policy after policy… we can clean all of the cups up when the Joint Commissioners are on another floor… but if you really want to reach someone, do it with humor. I bet putting a C.diff sticker on that drink would do two things – (1) it would make them laugh, and (2) it would make them think.

If you have any ideas for stickers, let me know. In the meantime, I’ve posted a bunch of medical humor products that could serve th...