Infections that patients contract in the hospital are still killing tens of thousands every year, but the total number of infections is, for the most part, declining, according to CDC data.
Georgia hospitals have made significant progress on controlling one key kind of infection — central line-associated bloodstream infection, involving a tube placed in the patient’s neck or chest that is used to deliver medicine or draw blood — but the state still lags behind the nation as a whole in controlling it. When a central line is not inserted properly, or not kept clean, it becomes a gateway for germs to flow straight into the bloodstream.
About 1 in 25 patients every day has at least one infection acquired during their hospital treatment. That added up to 722,000 cases nationwide in 2011, according to a second report released Wednesday.
“Of those people, as many as one out of nine go on to die,” said Dr. Michael Bell, deputy director of the CDC’s Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion. “This is not a minor issue.”
- Subscribers may read the full story at myajc.com.
- Also, view the AJC's interactive database on infection rates by hospital in metro Atlanta.
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