Hospital acquired infections on the increase

By Candy Lashkari

Despite being reported over a decade ago, little has been done in America to reduce hospital born infections as per a Health and Human Services department quality report for 2009 to Congress. Hospital acquired infections seem to be on the increase according to the report when compared with statistics available for 2007. The situation is being seen as critical by many health care experts.

Nancy Foster, vice president for quality and safety at the American Hospital Association said, “We're doing that which we know how to do, and it's not having the intended effect. We need to identify other things we can do to drive down that rate of infections."

Blood stream infections after surgery have increased by 8 % , while urinary tract infections following use of a catheter after surgery have increased by 3.6%. For common infections caused due to medical care, the statistics have increased by 1.6%. Number of blood stream infections caused by central venous catheters, placed in the neck, chest or groin to administer medication, drain fluids or collect blood samples have stayed the same. While the only bright spot in the report was the drop in 12% of rates of pneumonia after surgery.

“We know that focused attention to eliminating health care acquired infections can reduce them dramatically," said Dr. Carolyn Clancy, head of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which conducted the studies.

About 100 hospital emergency rooms in Michigan have shown that it is possible to bring down the rate of infections drastically. By paying great attention to procedure they have managed to reduce the rate of central catheter infections to nearly zero. The hospital industry feels that more recent efforts implemented to reduce hospital infections may not be reflected in the data and hope that the next study will show improvement.

A new health care law which intends to penalize hospitals with high rates of infection will also help bring the figures down as per Kathleen Sebelius, the health and human services secretary. The law will come into effect in the fiscal year of 2015 and should “help turn these number around” said Ms Sebelius.

“Despite promising improvements in a few areas of health care,” Dr. Clancy said, “we are not achieving the more substantial strides that are needed to address persistent gaps in quality and access.”

Basic standards for hand hygiene, disinfection of patients, sterile handling of equipment and proper use of antibiotics can go a long way in reducing the number of hospital borne infections. However the medical culture is yet to accept the disparities in health care that occur in even the same hospital in different departments. A consistent and ongoing effort has to be made to fight and neutralize hospital infections.