Lawmakers want hospitals to report infections

PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Following published reports about lax hygiene and accountability, a group of state lawmakers is pushing for a law that would require hospitals to detail how many of their patients become infected during their stays.
"These are life-and-death issues that we're talking about," said state Rep. Katie True, R-Lancaster, a member of the House Health and Human Service Committee. "I'm big on openness and accountability, and it bothers me that you can't see records."
True and other lawmakers, including Reps. Tony DeLuca, D-Penn Hills, and Nicholas Micozzie, R-Delaware, are seeking to mandate that hospitals report in-house infections after reports last month by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
The newspaper reported that southwestern Pennsylvania hospitals don't do enough to combat the spread of potentially deadly infections, and that a state agency responsible for telling the public about infections has not done so, even though it was charged with that mission nearly two decades ago.
Some 2 million people in the United States are affected by hospital infections annually, costing an additional $9 billion to treat, according to federal agencies.
DeLuca said he wants to introduce legislation similar to a law passed last year in Illinois that requires hospitals to report infections to the state's Department of Public Health.
Officials at the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council, which is charged with collecting data on hospital infections, have said they will begin working on how best to gather the information.
Council members have said they have encountered resistance from hospital administrators, who have complained about the cost of collecting the data and have argued that not all cases of hospital infections are caused by medical errors.
The council is the state repository of health-care data but does not require reporting of hospitals' in-house infection data. The reason partly stems from a debate about how to define a hospital-acquired infection. The hospital industry has argued it is difficult to determine when and how patients become infected and are wary that infections would be classified as medical errors.
"We don't want to do reporting for the sake of reporting," said Paula Bussard of the Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania, which represents the state's hospitals. "Reporting isn't a panacea, on this or anything else."
Bussard said it is unclear whether the group would support legislation.