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New York releases third annual report on hospital-acquired infections

by Astrid Fiano, DOTmed News Writer | September 08, 2010
Surgical site infections are dropping in New York State, according to a new report.

The Empire State's third annual report on the progress of hospitals to reduce hospital-acquired infections shows a drop in infection rates, similar to other state reports from Indiana and Oregon.

The report was issued by the New York State Department of Health. Since 2007, the agency has performed audits on-site each year in 90 percent of all hospitals reporting cases of infection. The state is the first to use information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Healthcare Safety Network for hospital-acquired infections.

The report concerns 2009 rates for select hospital-acquired infections. According to the report, the rate of central-line associated blood stream infections has fallen 18 percent in the last two years.

In the latest report, the surgical site infection rates were highest for colon surgery (5.3 percent, having fallen 11 percent); coronary artery bypass graft surgery (2.3 percent on chest infections and 1 percent for donor site infections, having fallen 14 percent); and hip replacement surgery (1.3 percent). Since the department reports were instituted, there has been an 18 percent reduction in adult/pediatric central line-associated bloodstream infection rates, after adjusting for type of intensive care unit. While the hospitals that performed a high volume of hip replacement procedures had the lowest infection rates, for other surgeries there was no association between infection rates and the number of procedures performed.

One important determination the report makes is that hospitals need to integrate health information technology systems to enhance infection prevention and reporting efforts. Seventy percent of hospitals are still entering data manually. The department plans to continue improving infection reporting and prevention, including:

--Focusing on hospitals with the highest and lowest infection rates to identify risk factors for infection and opportunities for improvement;

--Conducting on-site audits to evaluate surveillance methods;

--Providing further education, training and ongoing support to hospital infection reporting staff;

--Providing hospitals with identified risk factors, strategies and interventions, and encouraging adoption of policies and procedures to reduce risk and improve patient safety; and

--Evaluating the relationship between infection prevention personnel resources and surveillance activities, infection rates and prevention projects.

The full report is available at http://www.nyhealth.gov/statistics/facilities/hospital/hospital_acquired_infections/