2006年NPR美国国家公共电台五月-States Push to Disclose Hospital Infectio

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Renee Montagne: This is Morning Edition from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne.

John Ydstie: And I'm John Ydstie. In Your Health this morning, two stories on medical report cards and how people are using them. We look first at efforts to rank hospitals according to their infection rates. Each year, an estimated 90,000 people die after picking up a bacterial¹ infection in a hospital. NPR's Allison Aubrey reports.

Allison Aubrey: When 51-year-old Sandra Grello scheduled an elective surgery on her hip², she expected to recover quickly. But during her hospital stay, she picked up an antibiotic-resistant staph infection.

Sandra Grello: It really took a toll³ on my entire body. I lost 8 months of work. My husband had to hire a caretaker to take care of me. So the cost was very extraordinary.

Allison Aubrey: A new initiative in Grello's home state of Pennsylvania aims to protect future patients by requiring every hospital to disclose infection rates.

Marc Volavka: To publicly release information that will help the public identify providers that are doing a better job at preventing infection than those that aren't.

Allison Aubrey: Marc Volavka directs Pennsylvania's Health Care Cost Containment⁴ Council. He says, ultimately, Pennsylvanians will be able to compare hospitals head to head, the way residents of Florida now can. Six months ago, the Florida Health Care Administration launched its first-of-a-kind website rating each facility.

Allen Levine: The first day that we had it online, we had 70,000 hits. And we're averaging, I'd say, probably 1000 to 2000 hits a day.

Allison Aubrey: Allen Levine, the secretary of the administration, he says right now hospitals are listed as below average, above, or just average. Ultimately, he says, the goal is more specificity. Lots of states are watching Florida. A dozen legislatures are considering their own infection reporting laws. For the time being, there are loopholes in all the state efforts. Take for instance the case of patient Sandra Grello. She says her infection never showed up on her hospital paper work.

Sandra Grello: My discharge diagnosis⁵ was complications of hip surgery. It never said hospital-acquired staph infection.

Allison Aubrey: As the systems are refined, the hope is that the mandatory⁶ disclosure will prompt hospitals to improve their surveillance and operating procedures.

Lisa McGiffert: Most of these infections are preventable, and clearly there is much that hospitals could do that they are not doing.

Allison Aubrey: Lisa McGiffert of Consumer Union says, even simple things, such as enforcing hand washing in the hospital or standardizing⁷ the way antibiotics⁸ are administered to patients before surgery.

Allison Aubrey: Allison Aubrey, NPR News.

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Words in NPR
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bacterial infection: 细菌感染
staph: staphylococcus; 葡萄球菌
head to head: 交头接耳地
for the time being: for a short period of time from now, but not permanently; 暂时
complication: a medical problem or illness that happens while someone is already ill and makes treatment more difficult; 并发症