David Blumenthal on the Drop in Health Care–Acquired Infections
<p>Commonwealth Fund President David Blumenthal, M.D., highlights some good news in his latest <a href="/blog/2014/reflecting-health-reform-good-news-high-performance-action">Reflecting on Health Reform blog post</a>: health care–acquired infections are declining in the nation’s hospitals. Central line–associated blood stream infections dropped 44 percent from 2008 to 2012, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and some surgical site infections are down as much as 20 percent. </p><p>In his new post, Blumenthal looks at how this life-saving reduction in infection rates was accomplished. An accompanying infographic also points to variation in improvement among states, showing there is more work to do. </p>
<p>The lesson, Blumenthal says, is that "progress is possible when you have good scholarship documenting a really bad, solvable problem and then mobilize both the government and the private sector to take it on."</p>
<p>Read the complete post on <a href="/blog/2014/reflecting-health-reform-good-news-high-performance-action">The Commonwealth Fund Blog.</a></p>