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21 Pennsylvania Hospitals' Infection Reporting Lax, Council Says

Posted on: Thursday, 1 December 2005, 21:00 CST

By Christopher Snowbeck, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Dec. 2--The Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council has identified 21 hospitals in the state that appear to be under-reporting hospital-acquired infections.

The council submitted a list of the hospitals to the state Department of Health this week, but the information will be used only as the department makes periodic inspections of the hospitals. But the names of the medical centers on the list will not be released, said health department spokesman Richard McGarvey.

Business leaders have been clamoring for months about the infection issue, arguing that lives and money would be saved if more hospital-acquired infections were prevented. The council released a groundbreaking report on the subject this summer, based on data the hospitals are required to submit, but noted that reports from some hospitals seemed much more accurate than others.

"When we're out doing record reviews, we can see how many hospital-acquired infections are in those hospitals, and if those are being reported," Mr. McGarvey said. "If we find incidents where that's not happening, we can cite them. At that point, they would have to give us a plan of correction to tell us what they will do to make sure reporting takes place."

If the health department finds in a subsequent visit that the plan of correction has not been implemented, officials could impose further penalties, including fines.

In its listing, the council contrasts the number of infections voluntarily reported by the 21 hospitals with the much higher number of infections that the hospitals were paid for treating.

But hospitals contend that the comparison is misleading because billing data does not distinguish between infections acquired in the hospital and those contracted before a patient was admitted.

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Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

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