Kathleen O’Connor, health care industry analyst and journalist, founded
CodeBlueNow! upon the belief that the public has a right to be involved
in creating its own health care policy. Involved in healthcare for 30 years, she
shares her unique ability to communicate current health care topics in
a language everyone can understand.Now it's Hospital Infections
This missive was originally posted on 2/22/2005.
A new Medicare study finds that 40 to 60% of the 90,000 deaths from hospital infections are preventable.
The study found that 44% of the patients did not get an antibiotic within the 60 minute time frame; another 10% did not get their antibiotics within four hours.
Not only is this dangerous, it's costly.
- The CDC estimates that some 2 million people get infections in hospitals--roughly 2/3 of the population of Los Angeles or everyone in Houston, Texas.
- This includes 300,000 infections in the surgical wound.
Costs for these surgical related infections are $1.5 billion.
Costs for overall hospital induced infections are $5 billion annually. - People with infections stay up to 7 days longer; are 60% more likely to end up in ICUs and face twice the chance of dying.
These studies by the Oklahoma Foundation for Medical Quality and the CDC collected data from 34,133 Medicare patients and data came from 2,900 hospitals.
Consumers Union is circulating a petition to have hospitals in other states besides Florida to pass disclosure laws on hospital infection rates.
CodeBlueNow!
Kathleen
