{"id":245951,"date":"2025-09-22T08:59:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T08:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/245951\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T08:59:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T08:59:12","slug":"hospital-acquired-infection-reporting-health-cares-dirty-little-secret","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/245951\/","title":{"rendered":"Hospital-acquired infection reporting: &#8216;health care&#8217;s dirty little secret&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When a hospitalized patient shows signs of a dangerous, potentially deadly infection, you\u2019d expect clinicians to move quickly: testing to figure out what\u2019s wrong, then treating with the right medicines.<\/p>\n<p>But that\u2019s not always what happens. And the reason is often financial: Federal regulators can fine hospitals hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars if too many of their patients get <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cms.gov\/medicare\/quality\/value-based-programs\/hospital-acquired-conditions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">hospital-acquired infections<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Some hospital leaders, realizing that if they don\u2019t look for infections, they won\u2019t find them, are discouraging testing, clinicians told STAT. Without testing, patients may not get the best treatment. Executives have also pressured staffers in some cases not to report infections to the government, they said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s more, regulators have known about the problem for a decade, but neither Medicare nor Congress has taken action to fix it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is like health care\u2019s dirty little secret,\u201d said Carol McLay, president of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology. \u201cEverybody knows it\u2019s done. Nobody talks about it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"restricted-text\">STAT+ Exclusive Story<\/p>\n<p class=\"restricted-login\">Already have an account? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/login\/\" data-stat-login=\"\" data-stat-paywall-cta=\"breaker login cta\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Log in<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"restricted-content-breaker-bg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/stat-plus-breaker-bg.png\" alt=\"STAT+\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/stat-plus\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"stat-plus-logo\" src=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/wp-content\/themes\/stat\/images\/stat-plus-logo-white.svg\" alt=\"STAT+\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\tThis article is exclusive to STAT+ subscribers<br \/>\n\t\t\t\tUnlock this article \u2014 plus in-depth analysis, newsletters, premium events, and news alerts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"restricted-content-breaker-wrapper-cta mobile\">Already have an account? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/login\/\" data-stat-login=\"\" data-stat-paywall-cta=\"breaker login cta mobile\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Log in<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tIndividual plans<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tGroup plans<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/stat-plus\/\" class=\"stat-button view-all\" data-stat-paywall-cta=\"breaker view all plans\" aria-label=\"View All Plans\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">View All Plans<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"restricted-content-text\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\tTo read the rest of this story subscribe to STAT+.\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/stat-plus\/\" class=\"stat-button restricted-button\" data-stat-paywall-cta=\"breaker subscribe cta 1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Subscribe<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When a hospitalized patient shows signs of a dangerous, potentially deadly infection, you\u2019d expect clinicians to move quickly:&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":245952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[25001,10019,210,1141,1142,3584,1856,881,154,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-245951","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-antibiotics","9":"tag-cms","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-health-care","12":"tag-healthcare","13":"tag-hospitals","14":"tag-infectious-disease","15":"tag-public-health","16":"tag-stat","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115247131303122416","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}