U.S. hospitals made significant strides in the past several years in reducing the number of infections acquired within their facilities but fell short of the Obama administration's targets, according to a new federal report.
The number of central-line bloodstream infections in hospitals dropped by 46% between 2008 and 2013, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's annual National and State Healthcare-Associated Infections Progress Report (PDF) released Wednesday.
“Hospitals have made real progress to reduce some types of healthcare-associated infections—it can be done,” CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said in a statement. “The key is for every hospital to have rigorous infection control programs to protect patients and healthcare workers, and for healthcare facilities and others to work together to reduce the many types of infections that haven't decreased enough.”
The report is a summary of data obtained through the CDC's National Healthcare Safety Network, which tracks healthcare-associated infections throughout the country. The purpose is to offer a snapshot on how the nation and each state are doing in reducing six types of infection that hospitals are required to report the CDC.
Last year's edition of the CDC report was one of the data sources for a December analysis from the Obama administration estimating that hospitals reduced a broader array of adverse events by 17% between 2010 and 2013, preventing as many as 50,000 deaths.
According to the newest data, hospitals made progress in several areas. Surgical wound infections decreased by 19% between 2008 and 2013. MRSA bloodstream infections dropped 8% between 2011 and 2013. The number of C. difficile infections decreased 10% between 2011 and 2013.
Despite the successes, the report suggests hospitals have more work to do. The number of catheter-associated urinary tract infections, for example, increased by 6% between 2009 and 2013. While 26 states performed better than the national average on at least two of the six infection types tracked, 19 states performed worse on at least two infection types and eight states performed worse on at least three infections.
Even among the gains hospitals achieved, on average they failed to reach targets that HHS laid out in 2009 in the National Action Plan to Prevent Health Care-Associated Infections: Road Map to Elimination.
The road map called for a 50% reduction in central-line blood infections by 2013, a 30% reduction in MRSA infections, and a 25% decline in catheter-associated, surgical wound, C. difficile infections.
“Infection control will always be challenging, and there will always be room for improvement, but there's no question that today's CDC report reflects hospitals' deep commitment to keeping patients safe,” said Brian Conway, spokesman for the Greater New York Hospital Association. “In New York State, hospitals are constantly exploring new ways to reduce infections and will continue to do so.”
The federal government has increased its focus on preventing infection that occurs in healthcare settings in recent years as means of avoiding the need to use antibiotics. Public health experts fear that overuse of such drugs is driving a rise in antimicrobial resistant pathogens that are increasingly difficult to fight. The CDC estimates that 2 million people in the U.S. acquire antibiotic-resistant infections every year, causing 23,000 deaths.
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