There's bad news and good news about hospital-acquired infection trends in the U.S.
On the bad news side, infections associated with medical care kept patients in a hospital bed on average 19.2 days longer, and cost $43,000 more than if the patient had not been infected, according to a study based on information from 2007 from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
The average length of stay for a patient with an infection due to medical care was 24.4 days and resulted in a cost of $52,096, the agency said.
The rate of death in the hospital, on average, was six times as high for patients with an HAI as for patients without (9% versus 1.5%) Also, on average, the cost of a hospital stay of an adult patient who developed an HAI was about $43,000 more expensive than the stay of a patient without an HAI ($52,096 versus $9,377).
Hospital size was also part of the equation in whether a patient was infected. Hospitals with 500 or more beds, and which were located in urban settings, which were private and for profit, and those that engaged in medical student teaching had higher HAI rates than smaller hospitals, non-profit facilities, those in rural settings, and those without medical schools.
Septicemia, or infection of the bloodstream was the most common diagnosis (11.8%) of patients whose hospital stay was prolonged because of infection. Adult respiratory failure was second most common, (5.9%) and complications from surgical procedures or medical care were the third (4.1%).
On the good news side, the rate of infections among medical and surgical discharges appears to have peaked in 2004 and 2005, with 2.3 infections per 1,000 stays, and in 2007, appeared to be in decline. In 2007, the rate was down to 2.03, the same level as in 2000.
Rates during the eight-year period between 2000 and 2007 decreased for all four regions of the country, ranging from 4.7% in the South to 18% in the West. The Midwest had the lowest rate for all four years and had a reduction of 14.1%.
In 2007, .2% of all inpatient hospital stays resulted in an infection during their medical care, or 42,243 patients. Patients over age 65 had the greatest number of infections, or 45% of the patients diagnosed with an HAI.
Of those patients with an HAI who were Medicare beneficiaries, 54.4% came in through the emergency department, 10.7% came from another hospital and 3% came from another health facility such as a long-term care residence.