For Immediate Release: Jan 11, 2006
Hospital-acquired infections focus of new legislation
Olympia -- The push is on to require state hospitals to maintain infection control programs to reduce the occurrence of hospital-acquired infections. Rep. Tom Campbell (R-Roy) has introduced House Bill 1015 to require state hospitals to collect for public reports data on how hospitals are doing to containing the spread of infections.
A similar bill stalled in committee last session, but this year Campbell and his co-sponsors are pushing to bring the legislation to the forefront.
"Across the country each year, about two-million patients who are admitted to the hospital are infected with other diseases and ailments because of their hospital stay," said Campbell. "About 90,000 of these patients die from their infections."
Campbell is no stranger to the issue, as his own father died from a hospital-based infection.
"The cost of hospital-acquired infections is staggering across the nation, and taxpayers and insurance ratepayers end up footing the bill" Campbell said.
A finding by the state of Pennsylvania -- where the provisions of the hospital-acquired infection legislation has been enacted in law -- determined that Medicare and Medicaid were billed more than $1 billion in additional charges in 2004; charges that had to be met by taxpayers.
He said his bill would create an incentive for hospitals to clean up procedures and ensure that infections do not spread.
The bill would require hospitals that provide acute care to collect information about the rates of hospital-acquired infections at their facilities for certain clinical procedures, including surgical site infections, ventilator-associated pneumonia, central line-related bloodstream infections, urinary tract infections, and other categories that the Washington State Dept. of Health determines necessary.
Hospitals would submit quarterly reports to the Dept. of Health on information regarding hospital-acquired infection rates for specific clinical procedures and categories identified by the department. An annual report from DOH would compare the hospital-acquired infection rates and note deficiencies or improvements for each individual hospital in the state.