Forcing the hospital's hand

Medicare recently announced it would not pay for 'hospital errors' or preventable illnesses, like hospital-acquired infections, according to the NYT article "Medicare Says It Won’t Cover Hospital Errors".

Interestingly, Michigan has been ahead of the curve in terms of forcing changes in hospitals there, which has saved lives and money. And the hospitals there improved their rates without employing new technology.

Michigan hospitals have been extremely successful in reducing bloodstream infections related to such catheters, researchers reported recently in The New England Journal of Medicine. The hospitals did not use expensive new technology, but systematically followed well-established infection-control practices, like covering doctors and patients from head to toe with sterile gowns and sheets while the catheters were inserted.

Hospital executives said these techniques had saved 1,700 lives and $246 million by reducing infection rates in intensive care units since 2004.

Some of the complications for which Medicare will not pay, under the new policy, are caused by common strains of staphylococcus bacteria.