EDITORIAL – Hospital stays make some ill

There are a lot of germs floating around most hospitals. Perhaps this is not surprising -… There are a lot of germs floating around most hospitals. Perhaps this is not surprising – after all, there are also a lot of sick people lying around most hospitals, plus an assortment of visitors and staff members.

What many people don’t consider, though, is the size of the effect these germs have on patients. According to the Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania, this effect is growing at a dangerous rate. The association assessed a state report on in-hospital infections and is considering publicizing its findings.

These findings include statistics showing that the number of reported hospital infections has risen by several thousand from last year to this year. These infections caused an additional 1,456 deaths, 227,000 extra hospital days and “an added $52,600 in costs for treatment of every patient with an infection,” according to an article in yesterday’s Tribune-Review.

This information has the potential to do good; anyone who can choose which hospital to go to would likely want to know where his or her chances of catching pneumonia through the air vents are smallest. Insurance companies that end up shouldering the costs of extended hospital stays also have a vested interest in learning which hospitals are more likely to make their clients sick.

On the other hand, this information has to be released carefully. These figures could easily spur people to abandon an otherwise acceptable hospital, or send them stampeding toward a higher-ranked facility that may not have the capacity for so many patients. It’s possible that what could be remedied by more frequent hand washing will appear as a much more serious problem.

Unfortunately, it’s far too easy to manipulate statistics, and some believe that the numbers are exaggerated. There’s also a danger in jumping to conclusions. It’s possible that the numbers are increasing because of better hospital reporting practices or because hospitals have been reporting on an additional seven infection categories since July. It could be that a hospital with a lower ranking treats a higher percentage of patients who are especially susceptible to disease, like the elderly.

It’s also difficult to tell whether a patient entered the hospital while already incubating an infection or if the patient picked up the illness after entering the building.

In short, if the Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania is absolutely sure of the accuracy of its findings, and if it has a plan in place to disseminate this information responsibly, it should do so by all means. Given the potentially harmful side effects of publishing slanted information, though – especially in health care – it’s important for this diagnosis to be accurate if it is going to be made public.