Georgia has made progress in combating a deadly infection patients can pick up in the hospital, but the state still lags behind the rest of the country, the CDC reported Wednesday.
Central line-associated bloodstream infections, caused by germs that enter the body through a tube inserted into a vein in the neck or chest, declined 44 percent nationwide between 2008 and 2012, but only by 33 percent in Georgia.
“Although there has been some progress, today and every day more than 200 Americans with health care-associated infections will die during their hospital stay,” Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a statement. “The most advanced medical care won’t work if clinicians don’t prevent infections through basic things such as regular hand hygiene.”
On a typical day, about 1 in 25 patients has at least one infection that was acquired during their hospital treatment. In 2011, that added up to 722,000 infections nationwide, according to a second report released Wednesday.
“Of those people, as many as one out of nine go on to die — this is not a minor issue,” said Dr. Michael Bell, deputy director of the CDC’s Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion.
Georgia is on par with national results for progress on three other kinds of infections patients frequently contract, the CDC found. Improvements have been slower to come, however, with these infections.
The new statistics represented a major status update on how health care providers are responding to intense pressure to do less harm to their patients. Federal health officials in recent years have prodded hospitals to improve by using a combination of financial incentives and public reporting of infection rates. At the same time, research has shown that many health care-acquired infections are highly preventable.
“The report shows that as a nation we’re moving in the right direction, but there’s a great deal of work still to be done,” Bell said.
State public health officials and representatives of the Georgia Hospital Association said Wednesday the state has made significant progress on infections in recent years, and the work continues.
“We’ve learned a lot,” said Denise Flook, vice president for infection prevention and staff engagement at the hospital association. “What we’re doing now is we’re focusing on those hospitals and organizations that need the most help.”
Hospitals with strong records for improvement are sharing their secrets with hospitals still lagging behind, Flook said.
State public health officials said a focus on reducing central line-associated bloodstream infections among tiny babies in Georgia’s neonatal intensive care units clearly paid off, with a 45 percent reduction since 2008. That reduction is in line with national progress.
Patients frequently get a central line while in the hospital. If central lines aren’t put in properly or if they aren’t kept clean, they can transport germs into the body. The germs can cause deadly infections once they are in the bloodstream. Research has shown that many, if not most, of these infections can be prevented.
The CDC also tracked Georgia’s performance on combating infections related to surgeries. The report found a 20 percent drop nationally in surgical-site infections related to colon surgeries between 2008 and 2012 — the drop was 17 percent in Georgia. For abdominal hysterectomies, Georgia registered a 13 percent drop compared to the 2008 baseline. Nationally, the decline was 11 percent.
At both the national and state level, hospitals showed no progress in combating catheter-associated urinary tract infections, the report said.
Bell urged patients to do what they can to protect themselves while in the hospital, whether that’s monitoring doctors and nurses for hand washing or asking whether catheters can be removed to lower the risks.
Central line infections
A central line is a tube placed in a vein in the patient’s neck or chest, typically, that is used to deliver medication or to draw or monitor blood. If the tube is not inserted properly, or if it is not kept clean, it becomes a pathway for germs to enter the bloodstream and cause a potentially deadly infection. According to a CDC report Wednesday, central line-associated bloodstream infections are down across the country and in Georgia, but the rate of decline is greater nationwide than it is here. These figures show the decline from 2008 to 2012.
“ICU” refers to intensive care units; “ward” means hospital unit outside intensive care, such as the surgical ward, or medical ward or urology ward ; “NICU” is neonatal intensive care (for newborns).
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