The knee-jerk reaction to reject new evidence because it contradicts established beliefs is named after Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis (1818-1865). The physician discovered a visionary way to save countless lives – only to have his own life destroyed when his theories were ridiculed. Imagine the Viennese general hospital in the 1840s: The biggest medical institution in […]
On a global scale, infections are the third leading cause of neonatal mortality. Therefore, a focus on careful hand hygiene practice plays a valuable part in infection prevention strategy, especially at the newborn ward. In the neonatology unit of the General Hospital Vienna/Medical University Vienna, an evidence-based, AI-enhanced quality assurance system provides immediate visual feedback […]
The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed weaknesses and gaps in healthcare systems around the world. For example, bottlenecks in critical supplies, a lack of investment in public health infrastructure and a lack of coordination between policymakers, authorities and health care executives, which have led to an overloading of health systems and a rapid growth of the […]
The Swiss expert Prof. Dr. Didier Pittet stressed the substantial meaning of hand hygiene in hospitals once again at the third CEE Conference on Hospital Hygiene and Patient Safety. Not paying attention to the field of hospital hygiene can lead to disastrous impacts. Prof. Dr. Didier Pittet, Director of the Infection Control Programme and WHO […]
Education, training and staff increases: Many challenges in Infection Control remain to be tackled, concurred representatives of CEE countries at the 3rd CEE Conference on Hospital Hygiene and Patient Safety in Vienna. A specific session was based on a publication on Infection Control which included contributions of national reference centers in the 18 CEE countries. […]
Nice feedbacks regarding the issue (Silo Busting) of our 3rd CEE Semmelweis Conference (March 12-13, 2019) are coming not only from the healthcare community, but from people who are deeply involved in the Semmelweis story. I was especially touched by the feedback of Raymond Lustig, composer of the great Semmelweis opera: “It was obstetrician Ignaz […]
Ladies and Gentlemen, I am very pleased to announce that the 3rd Semmelweis CEE Hygiene Conference will take place on 12 and 13 March 2019 in Vienna. Please save the dates! The 2019 Conference will be focusing on “Silo Busting – We urgently need more interdisciplinarity in our fragmented healthcare system”. Too often hospital departments […]
Good research often falls victim to misinterpretation or distortion: This shows a recently published article (September 2018, Didier Pittet et al.) in The Lancet . The authors cite a series of articles (The Guardian, Reuters et al.) which misinterpret a recently published study in Science (Aug, 2018, Sacha J. Pidot et al.). How could that happen? […]
Our first SEM-Talk was just put online. Take a look at our youtube-video showing an interview with the medical student Jürgen Alphonsus from Vienna. He shares his first experiences with hygiene in hospitals: “During my work in the field of surgery in hospitals where hygiene is of utmost importance, I was positively surprised. The majority […]
(c) freepik.com | user18526052
Semmelweis_Foundation
Semmelweis Foundation 
Semmelweis Foundation