Infections acquired in the hospital continue to rise
Infections acquired in the hospital continue to rise
Hospital-acquired infections are worsening in the United States, according to a recent report from Colorado-based Health Grades Inc. And a hospital’s infection rate may be correlated with its likelihood for medical errors, the group suggests.
"Hospital-acquired infections rates worsened by approximately 20% from 2000 to 2003 and accounted for 9,552 deaths and $2.60 billion — almost 30% of the total excess cost related to the patient safety incidents," the report says.
The infections include antibiotic-resistant bacteria that are very difficult to treat, including staphylococcus and streptococcus infections. Health Grades, which evaluates the quality of hospitals, physicians and nursing homes, found more than 300,000 patients died after suffering some sort of adverse, hospital-related incident in 2001, 2002 and 2003. More than 80% of these deaths could be attributed to the incident.
"Hospital-acquired infections correlated most highly with overall performance and performance on the other 12 patient safety incidents, suggesting that hospital-acquired infection rates could be used as a proxy of overall hospital patient safety," the report says.
The hospitals with good overall records on patient safety tended to have a "culture of safety," says Health Grades vice president of medical affairs Samantha Collier, MD. "A culture of safety requires rapid identification of errors and root causes, and the successful implementation of improvement strategies, which can only be achieved with strong leadership, critical thinking, and commitment to excellence."
The report calls for further dissemination of the results to the public. "For patients, it’s important to know which hospitals meet this standard, as they are nearly 200% less likely to have an incident at hospitals in the top 10%," according to the study results.
Hospital-acquired infections are worsening in the United States, according to a recent report from Colorado-based Health Grades Inc. And a hospitals infection rate may be correlated with its likelihood for medical errors, the group suggests.Subscribe Now for Access
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