For Immediate Release: Feb. 13, 2006

House passes hospital-acquired infection protection bill

Olympia - The House of Representatives passed a major health bill today that will force hospitals statewide to establish programs to reduce the occurrence of hospital-acquired infections.

House Bill 1015, sponsored by Rep. Tom Campbell (R-Roy) whose father died because complications of a hospital-acquired infection, said "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. Nearly 100,000 of those people die from this exposure."

In addition to the illness and death, Campbell, himself a health care professional, cited extraordinary costs to state and federal governments through Medicare and Medicaid. "Taxpayers across the nation are paying incredible costs because of these preventable illnesses and deaths. Medicare and Medicaid were billed more than $1 billion for these illnesses and deaths nationwide in 2004 alone."

Similar legislation is law in both Pennsylvania and Florida and Campbell said these states are providing good information on just how serious the problem is and how to protect patients admitted to hospitals, while protecting state and federal governments from meeting extraordinary costs through Medicare and Medicaid. "

House Bill 1015 will require hospitals that provide acute care to collect information about incidents in their facilities and report their findings to the Washington State Department of Health, including surgical site infections, ventilator-associated pneumonia, central line-related bloodstream infections and urinary tract infections.

"This measure will go a long way toward containing the spread of infections acquired in hospitals," Campbell said. "Hospitals need to understand their responsibility and improve their processes to protect the lives of their patients."      
The bill, which passed the House by a bipartisan 59 to 39 vote, and goes to the Senate for consideration.

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For more information, contact Rep. Tom Campbell @ (360) 786-7912