Four San Diego area hospitals have been fined $25,000 each after reporting preventable mistakes that killed one patient and injured several others. California health regulators are now also looking into three more cases in which patients were put in "immediate jeopardy."
Most hospitals in New Hampshire are not reporting hospital-acquired infection rates as required under a now 2-year-old law. Now, state legislators are questioning why the state department of Health and Human Services has yet to enforce the law.
Six West Midlands hospital trusts have broken promised to cut in half the number of hospital-acquired MRSA infections, although it's been reported that they have significantly reduced the number of cases.
A national campaign spearheaded by Boston Red Sox manager Terry Francona and Covidien Ltd., a health-care product company, is aiming to increase awareness and knowledge about hospital-related infections. The Strike Out Infection program also offers ways to prevent infections.
The Salt Lake Tribune reports that last year Utah hospitals committed serious medical errors an average of once every six days. There were 57 "never events" reported, 27 of which resulted in deaths. The state now tracks such incidents after a 2001 study by the Institute of Medicine.
Studies on test animals by New Jersey's Public Health Research Institute have found that Florida-based SinoFresh HealthCare Inc.'s nasal spray killed MRSA in nasal passages.