Can changing reimbursement increase handwashing?

Not the thrust of this article, but I found this point interesting:

With this in mind, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s Presbyterian Hospital installed alcohol-wash dispensers in every room and allowed nurses to ban doctors who don’t wash up from entering patients’ rooms. Yet more than one-quarter of UPMC’s doctors still haven’t gotten the message . . .

One major cause for such huge gaps in care is that financial incentives can be skewed. Insurance companies, which have learned that high infection rates cost them money, are beginning to provide bonuses to encourage hospitals to make big improvements . . .

But doctors don’t have the same incentives. They are usually not hospital employees and are paid based on the number of patients they see and procedures they do. Repeatedly stopping to wash up may slow them down and cost them money.

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