In keeping up with our occasional public service announcements, I received an email last week from haiwatch.com on Healthcare-Associated Infections. HAIs are a recognized world health problem. In the United States we continue to see this too as documented in the HHS, Adverse Events in Hospitals: National Incidence Among Medicare Beneficiaries report released last November.
Over 75% of all hospital-acquired HAIs are caused by four types of infections. Of all the HAIs, urinary tract infections are 34% while surgical site infections 17%, bloodstream infections 14%, and pneumonia at 13%. The report estimated that hospital care associated with adverse and temporary harm events, including hospital-acquired infections, cost Medicare an estimated $324 million in October 2008. Assuming the same adverse events for the entire 2009, the annual cost would estimate to $4.4 billion.
Everyone should realize we can and should do better. Check out Kimberly-Clark Health Care’s new web site “Not on May Watch”. wwwlhaiwatch.com. Its goal is to help hospitals reduce the likelihood of these life-threatening infections and provide tools and information on eliminating these HAIs.
Here are additional links on HAIs:
http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/hais.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/hai/
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-10-089.html
Pass it on…
.