PA first to report hospital-specific infection rates

Pennsylvania has become the first state in the U.S. to report hospital-specific, rather than aggregate, hospital-acquired infection rates. The new report, issued by the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment (PHC4), addresses infection rates among 1.6 million treated in the state's 168 acute care hospitals in 2005. The report measures the number of cases and infection rate per 1,000 cases, mortality measures, average lengths of stay and average charges with and without infections-and the information is broken down to the hospital-by-hospital level. The state began phasing in hospital-acquired infection reporting requirements in 2004.

The PHC4 found 19,154 cases in which patients contracted a hospital-acquired infection during 2005, a rate of 12.2 per 1,000 cases. Patients with hospital-acquired infections stayed more than 20 days on average, while others averaged 4.5 days. And bills for infected patients were dramatically higher; patients with infections were charged $185,260 on average, while the average charge for non-infected patients was $31,389.

For more report details:
- read this release from the PHC4
- gather custom data with the PCH4's "generate your own report" page

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