One in 20 patients acquire infections while receiving care at U.S. hospitals, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and routine cleanings are often not enough to kill some powerful strains of bacteria, according to an article on the News Telegram website.
Increasingly, insurers are changing payment models to account for the quality of care hospitals provide. That means hospitals with lower infection rates can earn more money, the article said..
But even as some infections are decreasing, other threats — such as clostridium difficile, are growing. Deaths related to C. diff soared 400 percent between 2000 and 2007, with 14,000 deaths per year, according to the CDC. Infection rates are still too high, according to Dr. Ashish K. Jha, a patient safety expert and professor of health policy at Harvard School of Public Health.
"Are patients safer now than they were 10 or 12 years ago? Overall, the story is a little bit — but not that much," he said.
The state of Massachusetts mandates that all hospitals have infection preventionists on staff. Smaller hospitals have one, while UMass Memorial has seven people dedicated to curbing infections. But infection prevention extends well beyond these specialists. It is part of how doctors, nurses and the hospital cleaning staff do their jobs.
Read the article.
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