Colorado consumers will have to wait at least six more months before they can study infection rates in the state’s health care facilities and use that information to choose hospitals for surgery.
A legislative deadline passed Tuesday for state hospitals to report rates of acquired infections — picked up in hospitals or other health treatment centers — that can result in expensive treatments, amputations and occasionally cause death.
The bill, sponsored by former Republican Rep. Bob McClusky and Sen. Maryanne Keller, D-Wheat Ridge, required hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers and dialysis centers to report infection rates annually.
The federal reporting system for hospital-acquired infections has proved difficult for many Colorado hospitals to navigate, said Gail Finley, a section chief with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, which has to assemble the infection data.
The national database also is not set up to collect data from ambulatory surgery centers, making it impossible for Colorado’s 102 surgery centers to meet the mandate.
So far, 57 of the state’s 79 hospitals are tracking infection rates following three types of procedure — heart bypass surgery and hip and knee replacement surgeries. They also track bloodstream infections acquired in intensive care units.
Infection rates for at least one of those procedures, at 57 state hospitals, should be available by July, Finley said.
Katy Human: 303-954-1910 or khuman@denverpost.com
