PHC4 | Hospital-acquired Infections in Pennsylvania 2007

Hospital-acquired Infections in Pennsylvania 2007 - Report Highlights

This report includes information on infections that were contracted by patients in Pennsylvania hospitals in 2007. It is the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council's (PHC4) third hospital-specific, hospital-acquired infection report.
For the first time since PHC4 started collecting hospital-acquired infection data, it is possible to include comparative data on annual infection rates because hospitals confirmed and reported the same infection types in both 2006 and 2007. In 2007, Pennsylvania hospitals reported that 27,949 patients contracted an infection during their hospitalization, a rate of 17.7 per 1,000 cases, which is a 7.8 percent decrease from the 19.2 per 1,000 cases reported for 2006.
From 2006 to 2007, infection rates for urinary tract infections, pneumonia, bloodstream infections and surgical site infections decreased. The rate for gastrointestinal infections remained the same.

	Number of Cases with a Hospital-acquired Infection	Infection Rate Per 1,000 Cases
* The difference in infection rates between 2006 and 2007 was statistically significant.
	Number of Cases with a Hospital-acquired Infection	All Infections*	Urinary Tract*	Pneumonia*	Bloodstream*	Surgical Site*	Gastrointestinal
2006	30,237	19.2	8.7	2.1	1.9	4.2	2.5
2007	27,949	17.7	8.1	1.9	1.6	3.9	2.5

Differences in mortality, length of stay, and average hospital charge can be observed between patients with hospital-acquired infections and those without, as shown in the table below. The differences in mortality, length of stay, and charges may not be entirely attributable to the infections. The degree to which the presence of hospital-acquired infections influenced these numbers is not known.

	Number of Cases	Infection Rate Per 1,000 Cases	Mortality		Average Length of Stay in Days		Average Charge †
† In almost all cases, hospitals do not receive full reimbursement of charges; on average statewide in 2007, for all inpatient cases (not just infections), hospitals were paid approximately 27 percent of established charges.
	Number of Cases	Infection Rate Per 1,000 Cases	Number	Percent	Mean	Median	Mean	Median
Total Cases	1,578,600	NA	35,120	2.2	4.7	3.0	$37,943	$20,111
Cases with a hospital-acquired infection	27,949	17.7	3,416	12.2	19.7	15.0	$191,872	$87,655
Cases without a hospital-acquired infection	1,550,651	NA	31,704	2.0	4.4	3.0	$35,168	$19,748

This report displays data on hospital-acquired infections for each of Pennsylvania's 165 general acute care hospitals. Because not all hospitals treat the same types of patients, they were categorized by "peer groups" so that hospitals that offer similar types and complexity of services and treat similar numbers of patients are displayed together.
PHC4 believes the most important use of the report is to measure individual hospital performance over time and as a tool to ask physicians and hospital representatives informed questions about infection control and prevention, rather than to compare hospitals to each other.