Hospitals Rated on Post-Surgery Infections

(CBS)  While the prospect of having to spend time at a hospital is unpleasant enough, patients also have to deal with the fear of catching a hospital acquired infection.

Now Consumer Reports has made an online system available which gives consumers access to hospital infection rates.

According to a recent Associated Press report, some 30 million surgical procedures are done each year, and up to a half million Americans develop surgical-site infections, mostly from staph bacteria.

In a press release, the head of the Consumer Reports Health Ratings Center, John Santa, M.D., M.P.H. said, "For far too long, consumers have been in the dark, with no easy way to find out how well their hospitals perform when it comes to these often deadly infections."

According to Consumer Reports, the magazine "collected and compared data for ICUs in 926 hospitals, finding tremendous variations within the same cities and even within the same health-care systems. Bloodstream infections cause at least 30 percent of the estimated 99,000 annual hospital-infection-related deaths in the U.S."

"Poorly performing hospitals include several major teaching institutions in major metropolitan areas. Some examples include New York University Langone Medical Center in New York City; the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville; the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio; Strong Memorial in Rochester, N.Y.; Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey; Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in Hamilton, N.J.; and the Santa Monica UCLA Medical Center in California," Consumer Reports cited in its release.

Hospitals that fared better, according to Consumer Reports, included the "University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Presbyterian, St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma, Harris Methodist in Houston, Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San Jose, and seven Kaiser hospitals in California."

Click here to access Consumer Reports' ratings.

[geepus]

http://www.consumerreports.org/health/doctors-hospitals/doctors-and-hospitals.htm to access the article for free.

[geepus]

You do not have to join Consumer Reports. Go to the following link and click "read article": http://www.consumerreports.org/health/doctors-hospitals/doctors-and-hospitals.htm

[MuskiePhD]

This report by Consumers Report would appear to be incomplete, if not to have missed its mark and an important opportunity.

A fair question to ask is whether Consumer Reports has displayed a genuine, or, possibly, merely a convenient, commitment to dubious health care practices and to those that reduce hospital-acquired infections.

Of concern is that Consumers Reports has not researched and addressed probably the most significant breach to affect adversely health care vis-a-vis infections, at least in the medical device industry: that health care facilities across North America have been using for the past twenty years a "sterilizing" device, used to process all types of surgical instruments, including neuro-surgical instruments, that according to the FDA has been adulterated and misbranded, not just for the past few months or even years, but since 1988. In 2001, the FDA associated this device with an increased risk of health care infections, such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections.

Interestingly, just today, the FDA informed the public that it can continue using this "sterilizing" device for at least 18 more months, its declaration that this device's safety cannot be assured notwithstanding.

What the FDA, Consumer Reports, and others have not published is that such types of "investigational" devices CAN be used in today's hospitals. BUT, as dictated by the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, their use cannot be done behind the closed doors and the patient's back, requiring informed patient consent.

Consumers Report is asked to comment on the importance of informed patient consent, whether its endorses the postponement of aseptic technique for at least another 18 months, and the extent to which it believes patients may be affected by the use of adulterated devices.

In short, for Consumer Reports to talk about bloodstream infections without addressing factors that contribute to such types of infections (e.g., the use of adulterated "sterilizing" devices for more than 20 years, including for at least 18 more months) is to be remiss and to overlook, intentionally or not, important considerations that affect all of our lives including our safety.

I have written many articles about these topics and the importance of aseptic technique and of organizations and agencies, including Consumers Reports, being committed to full disclosure and to being entirely forthright, objective, and unbiased.

I respectively ask that news sources and Consumers Report address this topic (which might include, if briefly, an assessment of the veracity and objectivity of my writings and of my published commitment to this field, to the interests of the patient, and to preventing healthcare-acquired infections).

Lawrence F Muscarella PhD
Custom Ultrasonics, Inc.

[consciousnes]

Of course you have to join consumer's report to get the info.