Infections to Be Reported by US Hospitals

By Christopher Walker
Dec 11 2010

The US federal government announced this week that they will start requiring all US hospitals to report bloodstream infections from patients that were treated in intensive care units.

Under the new federal guidelines, all hospitals who feature intensive care units for trauma and acute diseases must report to the government about hospital borne infections.

This new set of guidelines is meant to stop the spread of infections from one hospital to the next and also to help curb the problems of patient deaths from the infections.

According to new statistics, 31,000 patient deaths were reported due to hospital borne infections. The government believes that many of these deaths could have been prevented if the hospitals had a reference point to work from.

As such the new reports will be featured on a website that will go public next year and all hospitals can reference the site to check for infections in other care units.

Research has proven that care and attention to detail by the staff in the care units is the best way to prevent the infections from occurring. The study also proved that catheter tubes were the most likely cause of the infections and their use is often incorrect.

Under the new guidelines, the employees in the care units will be retrained in catheter use which will limit the number of new infections.

Furthermore, a standard of care reference will be designed for those that already have the infections to help prevent the spread of the disease and to save the patient’s life.