We at Skyline Hospital are committed to making your visits safe as you get the care you need. Our goal is to stop infections and prevent them from spreading. Washington State’s hospitals are working together to make patient safety and quality our top priority.

One of the ways we are doing this is focusing on hand hygiene. Proper hand washing or sanitizing is one of the best ways to prevent infections. Our hospital is proud to be a place where patients are welcomed and encouraged to be involved in their care.  Not only do we monitor and encourage staff to wash or sanitize their hands, but we want patients to feel comfortable asking caregivers and visitors about handwashing if they don’t see it being done. We expect you to ask, so don’t be shy!

Another way we are working on patient safety and quality is by taking part in the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s 5 Million Lives Campaign. This is a national campaign to dramatically reduce incidents of medical harm in U.S. hospitals. The 5 Million Lives Campaign asks hospitals to improve the care they provide in order to protect patients from 5 million incidents of medical harm over a 24-month period, ending December 9, 2008. It represents a continuation of the largest improvement effort undertaken in recent history by the health care industry. To find out more about this, look at www.ihi.org .

If you have questions about infection control, please ask one of the nurses or the Infection Control nurse.

If you have general health questions or questions about infectious diseases in the community, a good reference is the Klickitat County Health Department. Their website is www.klickitatcounty.org/Health/ and their phone is 509-493-1558 or 888-267-1199.

You can also dial simply 211 to access regional information and referral services or to get current information about disease outbreaks.