Health care reform to date has dealt with access more so than cost. News reports by the Department of Health and Human Services reveal how the health care industry’s failure to improve patient safety helps drive the costs within the system, and why impending penalties are necessary.
The 2009 Health Care Quality Report found, for example, a nearly 15 percent increase in post-surgical bloodstream infections through the end of 2006, despite a national focus on eliminating infections as a means of boosting patient safety and reducing costs.
The report also found virtually no change in urinary tract infections from 2005 through 2007.
Hospital acquired infections are a major driver of health care costs. In 2008 in Pennsylvania alone, according to the state Health Care Cost Containment Council, more than 22,000 patients were readmitted to hospitals for treatment of hospital acquired infections, resulting in 157,000 hospital days and $1.1 billion in charges.
Medicare has begun to deny reimbursement, in some cases, when patients are readmitted for treatment of hospital acquire infections Some private insurers plan to emulate that policy.
That could place further stress on many hospital because the costs of treating a patient on readmissions are as real as those for an initial admission.
But the emphasis on patient safety and reducing costs by reducing hospital acquired infections is a valid course.
