Personal Injury Law

$34 million awarded to nursing homes and other settings to fight healthcare associated infections

The U.S. Health and Human Service?s Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality announced that it will be giving $34 million doctors to projects working to prevent healthcare-associated infections in long-term care facilities, hospitals, ambulatory care settings, and end-stage renal disease facilities. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are an estimated 2 million cases of healthcare-associated infections in hospitals every year. These result in nearly 100,000 deaths! The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality is working with other agencies, such as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the CDC, and the National Institutes of Health, to get a sense of where the funds will be best spent. The officials say that the growing body of research and information address how the infections are spread in hospitals, but the research is lacking in other settings such as ambulatory clinics and long-term care facilities like nursing homes.

Infections can occur in any health care setting, but the new projects are working to reduce infections in other settings and help patients feel confident that they are in safe hands. Infections in health care settings can result in medical malpractice lawsuits and nursing home neglect lawsuits.

Full post as published by Illinois Injury Lawyer Blog on November 16, 2010 (boomark / email).