Guidelines designed to track potentially deadly infections in hospitals and clinics

Mar 1 2005

Guidelines released on Monday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are designed to help track and alert the public to potentially deadly infections in hospitals and clinics.

90,000 die as a result of contracting pneumonia, bacterial sepsis and other infections following surgery, insertion of catheters or other medical procedures in U.S. hospitals each year.

Consumer pressure has forced Illinois, Pennsylvania, Missouri and Florida to pass laws making hospitals publicly report infections related to health care. Another 30 states are moving towards mandatory release of such information.

Whether these measures will lower infection rates is unclear; the CDC decided to issue voluntary recommendations after lawmakers and others sought advice on how to set up mandatory reporting systems. States that do so to need to consult with disease experts, maintain established infection monitoring methods and provide regular and confidential feedback to health-care providers.

The Atlanta-based federal agency, which is responsible for monitoring and responding to a wide range of health threats, is hopeful hospitals and clinics as well as consumers will benefit from its guidance.

Mandatory reporting aims to furnish consumers with information they can use to make health-care choices," said Dr. Denise Cardo, director of the CDC's division of health-care quality promotion.

Public reporting may possibly reduce the number of infections, collecting such information can lead to improvements in patient safety. hospitals fear that it will only be another costly layer of bureaucracy providing little or no valuable information to consumers.