“Thousands of patients are losing time and money because of mistakes that can be avoided with proper guidelines,” Stack said. “Healthcare-acquired infection is a major problem that demands a solution if Pennsylvania wants to improve the healthcare system.”

In 2005, Pennsylvania hospitals reported more than 19,000 cases in which patients contracted a hospital-acquired infection, a rate of 12.2 per 1,000 cases, according to a report from the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council (PHC4), titled Hospital-acquired infections in Pennsylvania.

The report found that average length of stay for patients with a hospital-acquired infection was 20.6 days; however, the average length of stay for patients without a hospital-acquired infection was 4.5 days.

The average hospital charge for patients with a hospital-acquired infection was $185,000; however the average hospital charge for patients without a hospital-acquired infection was $31,000, the report noted.

“The differences in these numbers are startling,” Stack said. “I’m pleased that the governor has brought this issue to light, and I want to help put Prescription for Pennsylvania into practice.”

Prescription for Pennsylvania calls for numerous healthcare improvements that would reduce healthcare-acquired infections; reduce emergency room use for non-emergency patients while
improving access to primary care health centers; and create the “Cover All Pennsylvanians” health insurance program, which will improve coverage for everyone.

“Prescription for Pennsylvania offers a multi-faceted approach to improving our healthcare system, and my legislation specifies practices to prevent medical errors,” Stack said.
Under Senate Bill 12, all hospitals would be required to use a uniform electronic surveillance system identified and certified by the PHC4 and to report healthcare-acquired infections to PHC4.

Nursing homes would be required to report to PHC4 information on healthcare-acquired infections similar to that reported by hospitals.

The Patient Safety Authority would use data already being delivered by nursing homes to the Department of Health to improve patient safety and the quality of care.

Nursing homes would also receive patient safety advisories published by the authority and nursing home staff would be eligible for patient safety training conducted by the authority.
Hospitals would be required to submit an annual report, identifying three-year trends in healthcare-acquired infections, medication errors, readmissions and procedure complications, failures to rescue and falls. The report would also need to specify which safe practices hospitals have adopted and their plans for implementing improvement programs that the hospital intends to implement.

Hospitals and nursing homes would be required to adopt universal screening of patients, residents and staff for MRSA (methicillinresistant staphylococcus aureus).
MRSA is a bacterial healthcare-acquired infection that is resistant to commonly used antibiotics.

The Department of Health would be required to establish standardized best practices for eliminating health care acquired infections and reducing medical errors.
Patient safety training would be required for top administrators and board members of hospitals as well as top clinical personnel. Similar training is required of nursing home administrators and directors of nursing.

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