Today, the
Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council will release what Consumers Union called a "groundbreaking report" on hospital-acquired infections.
Consumers Union says this report is the first of its kind to tell consumers how many patients picked up infections at each of the state's hospitals, and how many died from them. Previous reports by the state agency provided statewide, aggregate data on hospital infections. Consumers Union says no other state or federal agency has compiled and released hospital-specific data reported directly from the facilities.
The report, which will be released officially at a 1 p.m. news conference in Harrisburg, Pa., will also be available online this afternoon. Some patients who were infected in hospitals will be at the news conference. Consumers Union says it
will help journalists locate infection victims around the country.
The
organization is providing these contacts for journalists:
- Lisa McGiffert: 512-477-4431, ext. 115 (office) or 512-415-5405 (cell)
- Michael McCauley: 415-431-6747, ext. 126 (office)
The CDC says healthcare-associated infections "account for an estimated 2 million infections, 90,000 deaths and $4.5 billion in excess health care costs annually."
This is an opportunity for you to ask why other states do not require the level of disclosure Pennsylvania does. According to Consumers Union,
15 states have disclosure laws. Three states are considering them. Two more states, Nevada and Nebraska, require hospitals to keep infection records and report them to the state, but do not disclose the data to the public.
That means most states don't track infection data at all, which is shocking.
In Florida, for example, you can compare infection rates at individual hospitals.
Pennsylvania has issued four previous reports that set something of a model for what other states could do to help consumers:
Consumers Union says legislators around the country have become more active in trying to protect patients by requiring infection rate disclosure:
Every day, an average of nearly 250 people die from infections they pick up in the hospital, according to estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Now more states are moving to shine the spotlight on this serious public health problem by requiring hospitals to publicly disclose how many of their patients develop infections during treatment. [...]
As the first states began publishing reports on hospital-acquired infections, lawmakers in 32 states launched their attacks against this deadly health care problem by filing public reporting legislation. At least twelve states are expected to have hospital infection reporting laws in place by the end of the 2006 legislative sessions. Infection reporting requirements have been adopted in eight states so far to raise public awareness and encourage hospitals to work harder to implement effective infection control programs. Another four states are poised to adopt infection reporting bills soon.
See this Web site for tons of resources and news stories.
More on Infection Rates
Consumers Union says: "New guidelines for U.S. health care facilities to control
drug-resistant infections are strictly voluntary and fail to recommend proven prevention practices."
PBS says: "[... A] four-part television series for PBS that
follows pioneering individuals struggling to
fix our broken health care system." Episode two focuses on hospital-acquired infections.
The Texas Medical Association says: "More than 30 years of scientific evidence has demonstrated that
shaving surgical sites before operations actually increases the risk of
sometimes deadly infections."
Consumers Union says: "Listen to a webcast of the House Oversight & Investigations Subcommittee's March 29, 2006 hearing on hospital infections by clicking on the link above."
Consumers Union says: "The Institute for Healthcare Improvement publishes a new tool to help hospitals improve hand hygiene and compliance with 2002 CDC guidelines [PDF]. Is your hospital using it?"
Gas Prices/Hybrid Sales Drop
How quickly we forget. As gas prices dropped this fall, hybrid car sales followed. Not surprisingly, SUV sales went up.
A commentary in Newsweek points out:
[... J]umbo SUVs like the Chevy Suburban had their biggest month of the year in October. Meanwhile, hybrid sales fell 16.2 percent from September to October, according to Ward's AutoInfoBank.
Translation Fails Voters
I was teaching a workshop at KOAT-TV in Albuquerque, N.M. over the weekend and spotted this story that left me wondering if it is a problem nationwide.
The city had put a ballot issue before voters. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 requires that ballots be printed in translation in counties where 5 percent or more of the population speaks a foreign language. But members of the New Mexico Translators and Interpreters Association found the Spanish version of the ballot to be absolutely awful.
The Albuquerque Journal reports:
If you read English, you undoubtedly understood the ballot question Tuesday that began, "Shall the Albuquerque Metropolitan Arroyo Flood Control Authority be authorized to issue... ?"
But if you read Spanish, you may have found yourself confused.
Here is an English equivalent of what you found on your ballot: "The Albuquerque Metropolitan Arroyo shall flood the Control authorization to publish...?"
The [c]ounty [c]lerk said she didn't read Spanish so she didn't know the ballot translation made no sense.
I found this Department of Justice list of which counties nationwide are required to have bilingual voter information. Some counties are required to provide materials in Spanish, others in Native languages and others in Korean, Vietnamese or Chinese.
The Department of Justice explains what is covered by the VRA:
Covered Jurisdictions
Covered jurisdictions are determined by the Census Bureau after each census based upon a formula set out in the Voting Rights Act. The most recent determinations [careful, that's a PDF file] were made on July 26, 2002.
Covered language minorities are limited to American Indians, Asian Americans, Alaskan Natives, and Spanish-heritage citizens -- the groups that Congress found to have faced barriers in the political process.
Section 203 Coverage Formula
A jurisdiction is covered under Section 203 where the number of United States citizens of voting age is a single language group within the jurisdiction:
- Is more than five percent of all voting age citizens, or
- On an Indian reservation, exceeds five percent of all reservation residents; and
- The illiteracy rate of the group is higher than the national illiteracy rate
The federal government has, over the last few years, filed a number of lawsuits against cities and counties for not providing the required translated information to non-English speaking voters and for splitting up voting districts so as to minimize the strength of immigrant voting communities.
It makes me wonder how many official documents, of the mass that are now translated into languages other than English, are accurately rendered. I'm thinking of courts where Spanish-speaking defendants offer pleas or confessions. Is somebody making certain that what they say is what the court hears?
This is a national organization that follows the issue.
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When the information comes directly from another source, it will be
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