Assuming you will be at tonight’s GBIO celebration, you may want to tape tonight’s Chronicle (channel 5 at 7 pm), which focuses on hospital-acquired infections and features our very own Consumer Health Quality Council members Lucilia Prates and Ginny Harvey. Lucilia and Ginny are two of the many thousands whose lives have been forever changed by preventable infections.
Some hospitals across the nation have nearly eliminated preventable hospital-acquired infections. In Massachusetts, our Department of Public Health is beginning a program to assist our hospitals follow suit and will begin publicly reporting some infection rates this fall.
In addition to the lives needlessly taken by these infections, the estimated financial cost to our healthcare system in Massachusetts is $400 million each year. Because of this – and the passionate advocacy of our Consumer Health Quality Council and legislative champions like Senator Moore and Rep. Provost – Senate President Murray’s cost-containment legislation seeks to strengthen DPH’s infections reporting program. Please click to send a letter to House Ways and Means to support that provision.
Chronicle will air tonight at 7:00 on Channel 5. More info here.
[Second paragraph of post updated to clarify that only some hospitals have reduced infection rates.]
James Madden
Please read this: http://runningahospital.blogspot.com/2008/05/central-line-infection-update.html
Thanks for the catch. SOME hospitals have done incredibly well at bringing infection rates to near zero (see earlier blog entries on checklists). But, they are a minority and your statistics are correct. This is a problem of epidemic proportion.
Sir, I am baffled what prompts you to say “Hospitals across the nation have nearly eliminated preventable hospital-acquired infections.”
According to information on CDC’s website: “In American hospitals alone, healthcare-associated infections account for an estimated 1.7 million infections and 99,000 associated deaths each year.” Perhaps I am overlooking something?