Effort To Cut Hospital Infections Expands to 55 Hospitals in California
On Thursday, the Blue Shield of California Foundation announced that it is expanding a program aimed at preventing hospital-acquired infections to 55 hospitals statewide, short of its earlier stated goal of 100 participating hospitals, the San Francisco Business Times reports.
The foundation said it expects the program to help hospitals:
- Reduce the number of patients contracting hospital-acquired infections by 2,000;
- Cut patient hospital days by 15,000; and
- Save $30 million in unnecessary costs to patients and hospitals.
Each of the hospitals in the program, called the California Healthcare-Associated Infection Prevention Initiative, will receive training from prevention leaders nationwide. Fourteen of the not-for-profit hospitals participating also will receive grants to help purchase data-mining software to help track and treat the infections.
The program is designed to train hospital staff to prevent six common categories of hospital-acquired infections, including MRSA, central-line blood stream infections and urinary tract infections.
Because fewer hospitals joined the program than expected, the foundation cut funding from $5.75 million to "up to $4 million," according to the announcement (Rauber, San Francisco Business Times, 7/10). This is part of the California Healthline Daily Edition, a summary of health policy coverage from major news organizations. Sign up for an email subscription.