CDC Releases Guidelines To Help States Track, Report Infections in Hospitals, Health Clinics
CDC on Monday released guidelines to help states track and publicly report potentially life-threatening infections in hospitals and health clinics, Reuters/Yahoo! News reports. The voluntary guidelines advise states to consult with disease experts, use established methods to track infections and provide confidential feedback to health care providers on a regular basis.
Denise Cardo, director of the division of health care quality promotion at CDC, said, "The goal of mandatory reporting is to provide consumers with information they can use to make health care choices. We don't know yet if public reporting will reduce the number of infections, but we do support collecting information that can lead to improvements in patient safety" (Simao, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2/28).