Rep. TOM CAMPBELL (R-Roy)
2nd LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT
Olympia office: 334 John L. O'Brien Building
PO Box 40600 Olympia, WA 98504-0600
Office: (360) 786-7912

For immediate release: Feb. 26, 2007

House Floor next step for major hospital-acquired infection bill    

Olympia -- Legislation that requires the state Department of Health to adopt standards for hospitals to follow in identifying, tracking and reporting health-care associated infections passed the House Appropriations Committee tonight by a 30 to 4 vote. It now goes to the floor, where Rep. Tom Campbell is predicting a strong victory.

"Each year, two-million Americans who are admitted to a hospital are exposed to a variety of infections because of the hospital environment. Of those, some 90-thousand hospital patients die each year, the eighth leading cause of death in the nation," Campbell, R- Roy,  said. "This costs the health care system $4.5 billion each year."

Campbell's bill (Substitute House bill 1006), which has now passed both the Health and Wellness and the Appropriations committees, will require all state health-care facilities to report such hospital-acquired infections such as surgical site infections and ventilator-associated pneumonia to the federal Center for Disease control and Prevention.

The State Dept of Health would collect the data for Washington and publish general reports on individual hospitals.

Last year, Campbell sponsored similar legislation which passed the House with bipartisan support 59-39. However, the Senate amended it to a study, which Campbell said was "worthless."

"I'm confident this year we will finally pass this bill into law to make sure Washington moves forward in this life-saving legislation," Campbell said. The bill will be scheduled on the House floor sometime in the next seven days, Campbell noted.

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Contact: Rep. Tom Campbell at (360) 786-7912 or campbell.tom@leg.wa.gov