Bill targets infections at Washington hospitals

OLYMPIA – Trying to reduce – and publicize – the odds of contracting a serious infection while undergoing care at a hospital, lawmakers in the state House of Representatives have approved a proposal to require public reporting of such cases.

“We go to the hospital to get well, not to be infected with a drug-resistant germ,” said Rep. Maralyn Chase, D-Edmonds.

If the Senate and governor also approve the bill, Washington would become the 16th state to require hospitals to report hospital-acquired infections, said bill sponsor Rep. Tom Campbell, R-Roy. Such infections are the eighth-highest cause of death in America, Campbell says, leading to unnecessary treatment expenses and tragic deaths.

Hospitals have successfully fought previous versions of the bill, which would have required reporting of all infections in hospitals. Under that standard, they argued, urban hospitals with high numbers of HIV or homeless patients would look dangerous, while hospitals in wealthy suburbs would seem to be doing a great job.

“It would have been, we think, wildly misleading,” said Cassie Sauer, spokeswoman for the state hospital association.

Campbell’s House Bill 1106 would apply only to new infections clearly acquired in a hospital, she said, such as a person on a ventilator who contracts pneumonia. Because of that change, the hospitals have softened their opposition.

“We neither hate it nor love it,” Sauer said.

The bill, which passed the House 86 to 10 on Thursday, would require hospitals to start collecting data on certain infections on July 1, 2008, and report it to the federal government. Starting at the end of 2009, the state Department of Health would at least annually publish a report comparing infection rates at individual hospitals.

Pennsylvania in 2003 became the first state to mandate such reports, Campbell said.

Some lawmakers felt the reports shouldn’t be mandatory.

“Washington has one of the lowest percentages of infections,” said Rep. Gary Alexander, R-Olympia. He said hospitals already report similar data – albeit on a voluntary basis — to a nationwide network.

The hospital association remains concerned about a provision that would allow the state Department of Health to add whatever measures it wants, starting in 2010, Sauer said. The hospitals would rather go with the standards set by an existing national group that includes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Medicare and Medicaid services and other groups. The group sets benchmarks for comparing health care and publicly reporting the results.

“We’re not trying to hide this stuff, but we’re trying to have it be something that makes sense and is understandable to consumers,” Sauer said.