Magazine Examines Hospital Infections, Profiles Pennsylvania Group's Efforts

Main Category: MRSA / Drug Resistance
Article Date: 04 Aug 2005 - 12:00 PDT

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Governing Magazine in its August issue examined hospital infection rates and one group's efforts to address them. According to the magazine, about two million U.S. residents -- or 5% of all U.S. hospital patients -- contract a hospital-acquired infection each year, and about 90,000 of these patients die. Since 1975, the infection rate has risen 36%, the magazine reports. Providers attribute the increase to factors such as advances in medicine and technology as older patients are treated for underlying diseases. However, researchers and some hospitals have shown that simple measures such as hand-washing by hospital personnel can save the lives of as many as 30,000 patients each year, and a number of states are considering measures to require hospitals to report infection rates, the magazine reports. The article profiles efforts by the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council to collect hospital infection data from facilities in Pennsylvania, the only state that is "on the verge of implementing a fully functional" data-collection system, the magazine reports (Buntin, Governing Magazine, August 2005).

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