MO reverses policy that removed older data on hospital infections

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 18, 2010

Missouri will start publishing past years of data about hospital infection rates on its website, the state's top health official said Tuesday. The decision by Margaret Donnelly, Missouri's director of health and senior services, reverses a previous policy of removing data from public view that are more than 12 months old. Donnelly said the decision was made in consultation with the office of Gov. Jay Nixon. The Post-Dispatch brought attention to the practice in a story on Monday that examined the difficulty consumers have in tracking infection rates at the state's hospitals. The state had previously said that the data were too expensive and sensitive to maintain. Donnelly said the decision to remove the data from the website was made by the previous administration and that her department would reverse course.