McCleary MRSA Prevention

A local guest editor, Dr Eric Steele, Bangor, ME, writes about transparency regarding Medical Errors in today’s Bangor Daily news.  This link tells the story of an unfortunate man who lost his life in a small Maine Hospital because of a huge overdose of Epinephrine.  Dr Steele, while recognizing the tragedy of the mans death, also applauds the hospital because they accepted the responsibility of this error ,made changes to correct the problem and apologized to the family.

If only this same thing could be done for the thousands of people who die each hear from Hospital Acquired Infections.  Many things are being done, but the most important one for MRSA is not being done as practice in the State of Maine.  Active Detection and Isolation is a proven method of prevention for MRSA.  Mandatory public reporting as also been successful in making hospitals accountable and transparent about these infections, and yet the Maine Hospital Association and Epidemiologists and other representatives from all Maine hopsitals have rejected and fought both of these measures.

I hope that Dr Steele is as serious about HAIs as he is about other Medical Errors. 

http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/147267.html?comment_result=posted#comments-post

http://www.themha.org/advocacy/LD1939.htm

This link to the Maine Hospital Association’s page and their stand on public reporting in 2008 shows how long they have been fighting meaningful public reporting of Hospital Acquired Infections.
This lengthy and detailed argument written by Mary Mahew (who I became quite familiar with at Health and Human services committee hearings) touts the existing public reporting that is already done through the Maine Quality Forum. There is quite a long list of “reportables” that are made public by the MQF, but if one takes the time to examine the type of those reports, hardly any of it is OUTCOME reporting. Most of the “reportables” are process measures like giving antibiotics at the right time, cutting hair correctly prior to surgery, etc. Only one reportable actually discloses infections and those are Central line infections.
CLABSIs are only 10% of all MRSA infections.
The infections reported on the MQF are a very tiny representation of the number of infections in our hospitals.
Other infections include SSI (surgical site infections) UTI (urinary tract infections) pneumonia, meningitis, mediastinitis after open heart surgery, osteomyelitis, meningitis and oh so many others….all can be caused by MRSA and other microorganisms that hospitals can grow and spread.
It’s obvious why the MHA doesn’t want to report these infections. It will force hospitals to expose their sore spots and may hurt the bottom dollar. But, thier job is to make people better, not sicker. Nobody should ever go into a hospital for a simple problem and because of infection that is not controlled in the hospital, they get sicker and suffer or die. It is absolutely not excusable.
Also, if hospitals are mandated to report and the reports are public, they will COMPARE, COMPETE and IMPROVE.
MRSA and other Hospital Acquired infections can no longer be hidden under the protective shroud of the MHA, Hospital administrations, Epidemiologists, and others. They need to be brought out into the light of day, exposed, and conquered. Hospitals cannot afford, financially or with loss of reputation, to ignore the number of patients who suffer and die each year from preventable infections.
The CDC, and other infection control agencies now support public reporting of all hospital acquired infections. The MHA needs to reevaluate their public reporting stand and be prepared to expose Maine Hospitals’ underbellies…for the good of patients.