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| Pennsylvania pioneers with hospital infection data Tue Nov 14, 2006 5:22 PM ET By Will Dunham WASHINGTON, Nov 14 (Reuters) - More than 19,000 patients came down with an infection in 2005 in Pennsylvania hospitals, the state reported on Tuesday as it became the first in the United States to divulge infection data for individual hospitals. Consumer advocates hailed the report on infections contracted by patients in the state's 168 hospitals by the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council, an independent state agency. "It sets the bar for other states," said Lisa McGiffert of the Consumers Union advocacy group. Marc Volavka, the agency's executive director, called these infections serious, costly and largely preventable. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has urged hospitals to do more to prevent infections, especially drug-resistant "superbugs," which are becoming more and more of a threat to patients. Every year, infections caught in U.S. hospitals kill 90,000 people, the CDC says. Facilities need to keep track of such infections and put into place regular programs to fight them, it said in a report in October. Pennsylvania hospitals reported 19,154 cases in which patients got an infection at a hospital while in its care, amounting to 12.2 per 1,000 cases and costing $3.5 billion in hospital charges, the report stated. The result was 2,478 patients who died after becoming infected. The death rate for patients who got a hospital-acquired infection was 12.9 percent, compared to the rate of 2.3 percent for patients with no such hospital-acquired infection. The average hospital charge for patients who
contracted a hospital-acquired infection was $185,260, compared to $31,389 for those who did not, the report stated. "This is a problem that's been kept secret for decades. And the take on the medical community is, 'Let's just keep it confidential, and we'll take care of the problem.' And they haven't," McGiffert said. "It's really important to expose it." There was no indication the situation in Pennsylvania was any worse than any other state, she said. McGiffert said an estimated 2 million people in the United States get infections while in the care of hospitals annually. She said reports like the one released by Pennsylvania can motivate hospitals to improve and allow consumers to choose safer hospitals. | |
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