Public reporting: tracking infections.

• Position: TRENDS AND TRANSITIONS - Brief article

Nearly 20,000 people in the United States die each year from the superbug methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. Another 94,000 suffer from life-threatening infections contracted while in hospitals. The costs associated with treating hospital-acquired infections are estimated to be more than $4 billion annually.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Public reporting laws are aimed at encouraging hospitals to improve infection control efforts, help consumers make more informed health care decisions, improve health care results and reduce the number of preventable infections, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Since 2005, the number of states with laws requiring health care facilities--acute care hospitals, nursing homes, ambulatory surgical centers, dialysis centers and correctional facilities--to report data related to hospital-acquired infections has increased from five to 27.

In 2009, 11 states enacted 15 laws related to healthcare-associated infections. Alabama passed the Mike Denton Infection Reporting Act, which requires hospitals to report surgical site infections, ventilator-associated...