Following on from news that PA lawmakers were approving legislation requiring hospitals and nursing homes to report patient infections to state authorities (as blogged on 7/16) - KaiserNetwork today reports that Govenor Rendell last Friday signed this bill into law. The bill will require hospitals to test their highest-risk patients and patients admitted from nursing homes for infections that are resistant to antibiotics as part of his "Prescription for Pennsylvania" plan. The bill, which will provide higher reimbursements to hospitals that meet benchmarks in preventing infections, will require most hospitals to install software to assist in tracking infections. Hospitals will be required to report infections to CDC, which then would provide the information to state agencies in Pennsylvania. The law will be phased in over several years.
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Jaz-Michael King directs health care transparency at IPRO, a non-profit health care quality improvement organization. This blog is updated by Jaz and members of the transparency team. If you would like help with your transparency efforts, please visit IPRO eServices.
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Health Data Management: Three Pennsylvania delivery systems will deploy a Web-based hospital-acquired infection surveillance system from Premier Inc. across their various hospitals.
Geisinger Health System, Danville; Frankford Hospitals, Philadelphia; and St. Luke's Hospital & Heath Network, Bethlehem will implement the San Diego-based health care alliance's SafetySurveillor system. The application is designed to help hospitals detect and alert staff to HAIs enterprisewide as well as facilitate intervention to reduce and prevent them.
The hospitals also will use the SafetySurveillor software to help comply with a Pennsylvania state mandate requiring hospitals to report their HAI data.