The deadline set by the Colorado state legislature for certain providers to report acquired infections has come and gone, but nobody's turned in their reports yet. It's looking like it will take at least six more months before all of the hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers and dialysis centers targeted by recent legislation will turn in their first-annual infection rate reports.
The delays have come, in part, because the federal reporting system for hospital-acquired infections isn't set up for ambulatory surgical center data, which has prevented the state's 102 surgery centers from getting on board. Meanwhile, hospitals are finding the data-collection system difficult to work with, according to state officials. To date, 57 of the state's 79 hospitals have begun tracking infections post-heart bypass surgery, hip and knee replacements, along with bloodstream infections acquired in ICUs. However, the data is not yet ready to be reported.
To find out more about Colorado providers' infection data compliance issues:
- read this piece from The Denver Post
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