1. Leave your cell phone at home and hope doctors and staff do the same. A study found that 95% percent of the cell phones of doctors and nurses in operating rooms and intensive care units were contaminated with bacteria.

Visitor and patient phones were more contaminated than those of hospital employees. Roughly 40% of the non-employee phones tested contained disease-causing bacteria, compared to 20% of the employee phones. And the phones of patients and visitors were much more likely to contain multi-drug resistant pathogens than the hospital workers' phones were.

2. Have doctors wash their hands more frequently. Doctors will wash their hands to protect their patients before they take precautions to protect themselves.

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