Should hospitals report infections to the public?

Answer 1

The last time I checked, people's medical history was private information. There are some diseases like TB, HIV, & Hepatitis that are "reportable diseases". They are reported to the CDC, not to the general public. People need to educate themselves about diseases, risk factors, and how to protect themselves. With so much ignorance in the world today, I can just foresee people having to wear "yellow stars" to indicate their health status. What will be next?

Answer 2

There would be no need for this, to what end would it be? to know there's an infection at the hospital, of course there is, it's a hospital and hospitals have infections. Unless you mean a contagious disease and even then, to what end and what purpose would it be.

Most people like you included, have little knowledge of what happens in hospitals. They don't operate as a whole. Each doctor is responsible for their own patients. The hospital has little knowledge of what's really going on due to the doctors, and privacy acts (freedom of the press and all that)
So, what would the purpose be? other then to start a panic that you or, anyone else cannot do a thing about, other then knowing what's going on. This would just be another job for an already busy hospital.

And by the way for some of you, tax money only supports a very few general hospitals, some cities don't even have these so, that means most hospitals are private.

Answer 3

Hospitals do have to report infection rates (among other statistics) publicly and they are available for you via the internet. (For example: NC Hospitals: http://www.nchospitalquality.org/) However, most of these reports are more than 6 months to a year old.

Also, it's important to remember that hospitals do not just grow infections in a lab and release them so patients will get sick. In reality, most patients get infections from visitors who come to see them. The visitor may be well enough to fight off the infection, but a person in the hospital is not. Please - whenever you go to visit a loved one in the hospital - do your part to keep them healthy! Wash your hands!!! (And I'm not talking about using hand gels, I mean WASH with soap and water for at least 30 seconds.) Of course, the hospital should do its part to make sure that all staff are following infection control protocols and they should be cleaning well to reduce the chance of an infection spreading. But it's really everyone's responsibility!


BTW, reporting infection rates has absolutely nothing to do with HIPAA or patient privacy. The number is an aggregate of infections in the whole patient population so no one person is identifiable. Also, infection rates, generally speaking, refer to post-operative infections or infections that people got while in the hospital, not ones they had already and are in the hospital to receive treatment for. Finally, in the event there is an outbreak of a contagious infection or virus in a hospital, for example, Noro Virus (Norwalk or the Cruise ship Virus), hospitals will put out an immediate public warning via the media and often restrict visitors in order to contain the spread of the virus or infection.

Answer 4

First of all, not all infections are a public risk. Second of all, if you are talking about infectious diseases there are strict protocols hospitals must follow. They report possible risks to the CDC who in turn determines when, and if, the public should be informed. They are, obviously, the ones best trained to make that kind of call.

Answer 5

There is already a public health disease reporting protocol in place. Depending on the disease, hospitals, labs and physicians already have to report certain conditions to the health department.

Not all conditions are reportable. Reportable conditions vary by region. Around here, we have a list of 85 reportable conditions ranging from TB to Chlamydia to anthrax to something as simple as Salmonella.

The health department collects the data, analyzes it and puts out neat reports in PDF for the pulic to read. It's up to thep ublic to read the report. Want to see what one of these reports looks like? Read:
http://lapublichealth.org/acd/reports/annual/cd05/cd050.htm
http://lapublichealth.org/std/annual_report_nofig_2004.pdf

Do we publicly report individual hospitals for having outbreaks of nosocomial infections? Not usually because it generally causes unnecessary panic. But we will intervene to control and prevent spread of infection. Occasionally, the hospital itself will come out publicly with their PR people and issue press releases about incidents or outbreaks at their hospitals.

Answer 6

Only if it's something that could spread quickly and kill many people, and they shouldn't name any names when they do report it. For example, saying "We have seen several cases of severe influenza lately and would like the public to be aware of it for their own protection..." is appropriate, but something like "At 8 o'clock this morning, Bustopher Jones came to our office and we discovered he had a dangerous form of the flu, so everyone should stay away from him..." is unnecessary and is a huge violation of privacy.

Answer 7

Yes, the public has the right to know what's going on in hospitals that their tax money is funding. We only seem to find out though if it's a particularly bad outbreak of something.

Answer 8

Sure, as long as they keep your name confidential. I always thought center for disease control recieved those statistics from the hospitals. With such public information you would think it could contribute to the education and prevention of some diseases.

Answer 9

No because they can be sued for violating the privacy act. Read up on your HIPPA laws

Answer 10

They do, when it's a real threat.
Like the tuberculosis from that guy on the plane.
Or the epidemics.