New rule requires hospitals to report ICU infections

Starting on Jan 1,2011, hospitals will be required to report to the CDC the number of people who develop bloodstream infections in their intensive care and neonatal intensive care units.  The new rule calls for acute-care hospitals — those that provide 24-hour care and have emergency rooms — to report four times a year on the number and rate of patients who get catheter-related bloodstream infections in intensive care units and in neo-natal intensive care units.  The data for each hospital will be publicly reported later next year on the Hospital Compare Web site of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  The new reporting requirement for the infections is technically voluntary. But if any of the nation’s 4,300 acute-care hospitals do not comply, they would lose 2 percent of their Medicare funding beginning in fiscal year 2013.  The new regulations are part of HHS’s five-year plan to reduce hospital acquired infections. The CDC estimates that the direct costs associated with hospital infections are as high as $45 billion each year.