As patients become more empowered, they are finding themselves in some awkward situations:
“More times than once, I had to say to the person coming into the room,’Did you wash your hands?’ ” said a woman who is the president of one hospital, and whose father was recently a patient at a different, well-known (but unnamed) Boston hospital. “When you’re going to the mecca, I felt like I shouldn’t have to tell somebody,’You should wash your hands.'”
Safety experts recommend that sort of vigilance — but there are more and less diplomatic ways of going about it.
