She also became the founder of modern nursing. (A E Television Networks) Sanitary issues were not the only thing that contributed to the spread of many infections. It was not a common practice for surgeons to disinfect their hands after performing surgery on one patient and beginning to perform surgery on another. (Ignaz semmelweis) In the 1840s a Hungarian physician, Ignaz Semmelweis conducted a detailed analysis and discovered that many women were dying after childbirth due to the surgeons on washing their hands in between patients. He soon introduced hand-washing rules and soon became known as the "Savior of women". (Ignaz semmelweis) In the 1950s, a large outbreak of penicillin-resistant Staphylococcus caught the attention of the public. (Dixon) Many Infectious disease physicians and many others focused on the development and implementation of hospital associated infection control programs. The programs began to spread to other hospitals and by the 1960's the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began to support the programs. (Dixon) .
Today there have been many new discoveries and massive changes in the technology, used in health care. But with these changes, came different challenges for the hospitals to control the infections that were acquired by a patient during their treatment. In a study that was conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2007, they researched the number of hospital associated infections and the location of the infection sites. The finds were alarming to many people in health care. There were an estimated 1,737,125 health care associated infections in the United States. 449,334 were urinary tract infection associated with a urinary catheter. 290,485 were surgical site infections. 178,000 infections due to patients' exposure to bacteria through contaminated surfaces or transferred to patients by the lack of hand washing.