Friday 2/29/2008 DAILY NEWS DIGEST
Birmingham News - House rejects Senate-passed version of ban on PAC-to-PAC transfers, bill headed to conference committee.
Birmingham News - Senate committee gives approval to bill that would greatly restrict smoking in public places.
Birmingham News - Postsecondary chancellor calls committee action on bill to give legislature authority over rules relating to two-year college system a “sham.”
Birmingham News - DHR, families clash over whether caseworker interviews should be recorded.
Birmingham News - Rep. Marcel Black (D-Tuscumbia) introduces bill that would allow electronic gambling at Birmingham and Mobile dog tracks, revenues earmarked for Medicaid.
Birmingham News - Rep. John Knight (D-Montgomery) pitches plan that would reduce income and sales taxes for families.
Birmingham News - The Birmingham News thinks decision to delay consideration of budgets is a good one.
Mobile Press-Register - Former president coming to Mobile to help build Habitat homes.
Huntsville Times - AEA played role in crafting Governor’s proposed education budget.
Montgomery Advertiser - State Board of Education likely to make changes to state’s high school graduation requirements.
Montgomery Advertiser - The Montgomery Advertiser views committee approval of measure to place postsecondary colleges rules under legislative authority as “retaliation” by double-dippers, urges legislative leadership to kill bill.
Anniston Star - The Anniston Star sees those failing to support call for constitutional convention as “all for democracy, so long as they think the vote will go their way.”
Decatur Daily - House approves measure that would fine contractors who knowingly hire illegal immigrants to work on state projects.
Tuscaloosa News - Summary of yesterday’s legislative action.
Tuscaloosa News - Montgomery businessman enters congressional race.
Times Daily - The Times Daily views proposal to give legislators authority over rule-making for community colleges as “going too far.”
Birmingham Business Journal - State’s auto industry payroll tops $5 billion.
FROM TODAY’S ANNISTON STAR:
Bill would mandate tracking of hospital-acquired infections
Star Capitol Correspondent
MONTGOMERY — Alabamians could one day know as much about their hospitals as they now know about the restaurants where they eat.
A bill in the Senate Health Committee would require hospitals to report to the Alabama Department of Public Health the rates of infections acquired in hospital by their patients.
Under the Hospital Infections Disclosure Act, hospitals would face fines of $1,000 a day if they fail to report infections such as surgical-site infections, ventilator-associated pneumonia, central line-related blood-stream infections and urinary tract infections.
The Department of Public Health would be responsible for publicizing each hospital’s infection rates and for keeping a record of them on its Web site.
Bill sponsor Sen. Bobby Denton, D-Muscle Shoals, said it is long past time for the state to collect and disseminate such information about its hospitals.
Denton lost his 41-year-old son to a staph infection that set in after knee-replacement surgery.
“The public has a right to know what kind of record a hospital has and the number of infectious diseases that occur,” he said, during a public meeting on the bill Thursday.
According to the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Methicilin-resistant staph caused more than 94,000 life-threatening infections and almost 19,000 deaths in 2005.
Alabama’s 105 hospitals currently don’t have to collect and report the number of infections that patients acquire in hospitals, but they are doing it on a voluntary basis, said Keith Granger, chairman of the Alabama Hospital Association’s Quality Task Force.
While there are federal mandates that all hospitals report certain quality data to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, hospital-acquired infections are not among those data.
Granger said the hospital association favors Denton’s bill, but would like him to wait until the kinks are worked out of the development of national standards for collecting and interpreting such data.
“We share Senator Denton’s concern and enthusiasm for this issue and want to raise the bar for hospitals across the state,” Granger said. “But we would prefer that we further define and standardize the process before we impose this bill.”
State Health Officer Dr. Don Williamson said he favors establishing a mandatory reporting system, but he wants to ensure Alabama doesn’t end up out of step with where the rest of the country is going.
Williamson said that at the federal level there is legislation that could require hospitals nationwide to collect and report their rates of hospital-acquired infections, but an accurate mechanism has not been established yet.
“I think it’s something that Alabama needs and the consumer needs,” he said. “The reality is that in any health-care institution bad things can happen.
“But the wrong thing to do would be to adopt a system that is not comparable to what other states are doing.”
Williamson said he also fears that a hospital that treats a high number of people with pre-existing infections might be maligned for something that is out of its control.
While many states have been using the CDC’s National Nosocomial (hospital-acquired) Infection Program, it is not without its problems, Williamson said.
Granger said with the help of Blue Cross and Blue Shield, the state is piloting a system developed in Birmingham with more than 50 AHA hospitals.
He said Alabama’s 105 hospitals could be using the system within two years.
Susan Williamson, a spokeswoman for Regional Medical Center in Anniston, said RMC has been participating in the state’s pilot program since 2002.
Through that program, known as the Alabama Hospital Quality Initiative, RMC provides information on the kind and amount of hospital-acquired infections, she said.
The hospital also has the opportunity to learn about “best practices” and see them demonstrated.
She said RMC would comply with any mandatory reporting process.
“It is important to keep in mind that this is all in an effort to provide quality patient care and improve outcomes,” she said.
Denton said when he brought his bill up two years ago, he was told that AHA needed 24 months, and he thinks they’ve had enough time to put something in place.
“They can tell you every reason why they can’t do it,” he said. “I don’t care what the national standards do. I want to know what Alabama hospitals are doing.”
