iHealthBeat.org
Published: January 8, 2010

(iHealthBeat.org) -- A new Washington state Web site publicizing hospital-acquired infection data has led several medical centers to scale up their infection-control efforts, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports.

For the Web site, the state Department of Health collected hospital data on central-line infections and ventilator-associated pneumonia from July 2008 through June 2009.

The Web site identified Swedish Medical Center and Grays Harbor Community Hospital as the two hospitals with the highest rates of central-line infections.

However, hospital officials say both medical centers achieved significant improvements in their infection rates after reporting the data. Officials said the public reporting helped compel the hospitals to conduct in-depth internal investigations of their infection control procedures.

The Web site also listed seven hospitals as having unusually high rates of ventilator-associated pneumonia from January 2009 through June 2009. Hospital staff said their facilities have made improvements since the collection of the data.

State health officials said the Web site eventually will add data on surgical site infections and central-line infections for neonatal birth units.

Washington is one of 26 states that require hospitals to report infection rates. Most of those states also make the data available to the public (Nalder, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 1/7).

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