A Rise in Healthcare Associated Infections: An Economics Research

Healthcare associated infections are ranked as one of the top five causes of death in the United States (1). This is a very serious problem being that so many people go to hospitals to maybe have a surgery and get better and in return get a very serious infection that has been known to take limbs and even lives. There are many different hospital acquired or nosocomial infections, but the one that I am referring to is especially dangerous. The name of this infection is called Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus, or more commonly known as MRSA.

Through medical advances in technology and practice, nurses have been afforded the opportunity to provide lifesaving care to patients. However, this lifesaving care comes with the risk of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). Generally speaking, HAIs are infections directly related with the delivery of healthcare and are often caused by viral, bacterial or

Healthcare acquired infections (HAI) not only contribute to exorbitant amounts of financial burden on the healthcare system but also attribute to staggering numbers of

CDC estimated that more than 1 million health care-associated infections occur each year, at a cost of approximately $30 billion annually.

The U.S government spends about 17% of GDP on healthcare industry which is enormously high as compared to any other industrialized nation. President Obama signed the comprehensive healthcare reform – Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on March 23, 2010. The law worked on the principles of triple aim to reduce healthcare cost, improve quality and access for the U.S citizens. One of the fundamental component of Affordable Care Act that will affect the caregiving to the U.S citizens is payment cuts to the hospitals if they do not provide quality care to their patients. The reason behind these payment cuts is because Part A Medicare Trust may go bankrupt by 2017. Hence, it is necessary to bring the cost of healthcare under control along with providing quality care to the patients. In order to contain cost, ACA proposed Medicare Readmission Program. Effective October 1, 2012 Medicare will reduce payments to the hospitals that will have higher percentage than the specified amount of preventable readmission rates. Effective fiscal year 2015, Medicare will penalize the hospitals by 1 % that will show higher number of hospital acquired infections (KFF, 2013). CMS has reported that approximated one out of every 5 Medicare patients are admitted back to the hospital within 30 days of their prior inpatient stay. Readmission rates are generally high for hospital that serve more vulnerable population like safety net hospitals. The high readmissions are caused by a

In 2005, in response to disturbing and widely cited findings by the Institute of Medicine about the prevalence of life-threatening conditions acquired by patients in U.S. hospitals, Congress authorized the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to implement payment changes designed to encourage the prevention of such conditions. Under an amendment to the Social Security Act that was enacted on January 1, 2007, the secretary of Health and Human Services was required to identify at least two hospital-acquired conditions by October 1, 2007, that were high-cost, high-volume, or both; that resulted in the assignment of a case to a higher-paying diagnosis-related group (DRG) when they were present as a secondary diagnosis; and that could reasonably be prevented through the application of evidence-based guidelines (New England Journal of Medicine, 2009).

UCDMC has dropped from an “A” grade to a “B” grade starting in the Fall of 2016 to present because infection prevention performance has fallen below average (LeapFrog Group, 2017). The infection report from LeapFrog corresponds with the SNI’s infection report for 2016 and 2017. Numerous CAUTI occur in the hospital nationwide each year and costs approximately $250 million (Agency for healthcare Research and Quality [AHRQ], 2016). CAUTIs are preventable and can

Due to the severity of Ebola, more Americans are conscious of the lack of preventative measures afforded for healthcare workers and patients. After Healthcare workers became responsible for three of the four cases of Ebola on U.S soil, a high degree of concern arises, particularly regarding Healthcare Associated Infections. HAIs are responsible for 33.8 billion dollars in healthcare associated costs, but face the long-standing issue of a lack of funding, community support, opposition of the use of penalty tax, and awareness as potential barriers. It is important

Health-care associated infections (HAI), which individuals obtain while they are receiving healthcare for another condition, have been prevalent for many years in health care. These infections have led to the loss of tens of thousands of lives and have cost the U.S. health care system billions of dollars each year as they are a significant cause of illness and death (ODPHP, 2017). The Healthcare-associated infections Action Plan, developed by the US Department of Health and Human Services, was developed to provide a map for preventing HAIs in these health care facilities. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how the prevention of HAI provision of the ACA is intended to achieve higher value, synthesize evidence that the policy has

Because SSI rates for healthcare facilities are made public, patients are able to gain knowledge of how well their facility SSI prevention practices work. “It is moving fast and furiously because consumers are pleased with the progress that has been made in reducing central line infections,” says Linda Greene, MPS, RN, CIC, director, infection prevention, Rochester General Health System, Rochester, New York. The public now expects the same transparency for SSIs” (Patterson, P., 2011) .Facilities that participate in Medicare must report their SSI for certain procedures; the list of procedures to report continues to grow as patients’ demand for listed procedures grow. ” SSI data will be reported through the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) managed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a secure, web-based surveillance system for reporting data on infections and other events. The data can then be used for analysis, facility comparisons, and quality improvement.” (Patterson, P., 2011) Hospitals will, and should, continuously search for new ways to increase their quality of care. Having a great overall rating for a low number of incidences of SSIs can only boost their ratings.

Surgical site infections occur when a patient experiences infection following surgery, often as a direct result of the care received in a hospital or other medical facility. While these infections can often be easily treated while the patient is still at the hospital, the incidences of these infections can have significant and lasting impacts on patients and the hospital itself, even resulting in a patient’s death if the infection is not detected and treated appropriately. Since these infections occur while patients are under the care of professionals and during hospital stays, it is imperative that all involved in patient care follow procedures and policies established by the facility to reduce the risk of infections in patients. This involves not only information about surgical site infections and their prevention, but the impact of these infections on patients, hospitals, and staff members, as well as how surgical site infections impacts a facility’s accreditation. The purpose of this paper is to discuss surgical site infections, the implications of their occurrences at hospitals, accreditation expectations, and outcomes related to cost and quality.

The major barrier to implementation of improving MRSA management through MRSA decolonization strategies is economic in nature. Financial costs are associated with both MRSA screening and decolonization strategies (Nelson, Samore, Smith, Harbarth, & Rubin, 2010). As an APN, the author was trained to analyze healthcare policies and submit recommendations that could further improve patient healthcare outcomes. The author believes that the hospital business administrators will be alarmed once she submits the proposal for adding MRSA screening and decolonization guidelines to the hospital’s policy on SSI prevention. Typically, hospitals try to avoid spending money on things that they do not see immediate

These infections can be severe since patients are often unaware of their exposure until the disease is quite advanced which can result in increased morbidity and mortality. Treating patients for these unwarranted infectious diseases has also added an additional burden and cost to the U.S. healthcare

Surgical site infections (SSIs) are a principal source of patient illness and impermanence. Each SSI that happens is related to roughly seven to 10 supplementary postoperative hospital days, and patients with SSIs have a two to 11 times complex threat of death related to surgical patients without SSIs.3,4 Surgical site infections have now developed as the most communal and most expensive cause of health care–associated infection. Thus, hospitals and health care providers must regularly track and improve devotion to evidence-based approaches for averting these distressing infections. According to the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) progress report on selected Healthcare associated infections (HAIs), surgical site infections (SSI) related to 10 surgical processes within the time 2008 to 2012 fell to 20%. However, despite the encouraging national report, none of the states showed any improvements better than the national standardized infection ratio (SIR) HAIs including surgical site infections.

The authors commented that complications after surgery increases hospitals cost and lengthens the patient’s stay in the institution. Spiraling cost for healthcare is not advantageous for the hospitals or the patients. Patients who stay in hospitals longer than expected because of infections are likely to prefer law suits against the institution. Compounding the problem are cases that results in serious morbidity or mortality resulting from infected surgical sites. In addition, the rate of readmission into hospitals and further surgery contributes to the concerns for reducing postoperative infections (Webster & Osborne). The research is relevant and poses a nursing challenge that includes other healthcare professionals such as administrators, surgeons, practitioners, patients, and the public.