Consumer Reports: Combating Deadly Hospital Infections

They're hospitals' dirty and deadly little secret--central-line bloodstream infections. At least 30,000 patients die each year from them. A Consumer Reports' analysis of newly released data reveals hospitals that are following simple hygienic steps have virtually eliminated those infections--but all too many others are failing to act.

In intensive-care units, central lines can be essential to treatment. Those long, flexible catheters can quickly deliver vital medication, nutrition, and fluids. But they can just as quickly deliver deadly bacteria into the bloodstream.

For years hospitals considered those infections an unavoidable risk in intensive care. But Consumer Reports says we know now that simple hygiene measures can reduce or even eliminate them.

An article in the New England Journal of Medicine in December 2006 showed a 66 percent reduction in central-line infections after hospitals implemented simple precautions. They included:

•      Washing hands before and after examining a patient or touching the catheter

•      Disinfecting patient's skin

•      Wearing protective masks, caps, sterile gowns, and gloves.

Consumer Reports' analysis of 926 hospitals in 43 states found that some hospitals have virtually eliminated those infections. Hospitals that have succeeded run the gamut from small rural hospitals to large urban ones. Links to states that are reporting hospital infections online can be found at: www.consumerreports.org/health/doctors-hospitals/hospital-infection/deadly-infections-hospitals-can-lower-the-danger/hospital-infection-rates/index.htm.

Last summer the federal government called on hospitals to reduce intensive-care central-line infections by 75 percent over the next three years. Consumer Reports says public disclosure of hospital infection rates is important and has been seriously lacking. Five years ago only four states required reporting. Now hospitals in 27 states are publicly disclosing infection rates or will have to under new laws.

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