Hospital-Acquired Infections Rack Up $9.8 billion a Year

At least 15 people may have been exposed to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease from neurosurgery instruments that had first been used at Catholic Medical Center in Manchester, N.H.

This is one example of our  nation's hospitals, nursing homes and outpatient clinics continue to fall short when it comes to performing necessary steps to prevent the spread of infection that can cause illness or death, new data from the Joint Commission show.

Hospital-acquired infections (HAI) cost $9.8 billion per year, with surgical site infections alone accounting for one-third of those costs, followed closely by ventilator-associated pneumonia at devices and supplies. Among ambulatory care operators, such as outpatient surgery centers, 37% failed to meet the same standard.  One out of five long-term care providers and one out of four home care providers did not meet guidelines for hand hygiene.

The Joint Commission accredits the quality and safety of healthcare operators. It released its ranking of standards that proved most problematic for healthcare companies in the first six months of 2013.   Preventing infection and hand washing were standards where ambulatory care, hospital and long-term-care providers struggled. There had been no improvement over the previous two years.

47% of hospitals did not comply with processes to reduce the risk of infections associated with medical equipment, devices and supplies. Among ambulatory care operators, such as outpatient surgery centers, 37% failed to meet the same standard.

Infections spread by medical devices or health care providers have long been identified as a major source of cost, illness and death. A growing body of research has sought to pinpoint the cost and harm from healthcare-associated infections and ways to prevent their spread.

Hand washing ranks highly as a way to prevent patients from acquiring infections in healthcare facilities, but compliance remains a stubborn problem among healthcare providers. Reasons for the lack of progress are unrealistic and inflated appraisal by providers of their own performance. Also time pressures on the staff or floor plans that tuck sinks in out-of-the-way locations.

Some organizations now deploy staff to secretly observe adherence and provide feedback to the organization or problematic individuals.

That type of accountability is necessary to improve performance, said Patricia McGaffigan, a nurse, chief operating officer and senior vice president of the National Patient Safety Foundation. “A true culture of safety will not tolerate these misses in hand hygiene and they will hold people accountable for not practicing their hand hygiene appropriately,” many organizations now deploy staff to secretly observe adherence and provide feedback to the organization—or problematic individuals.

One Company has come out with a badge for caregivers to wear. By using GPS the badge rings if the caregiver goes to a patient without stopping by the sink to wash their hands.