The public reporting of Hospital-infection rates has been the topic of intense discussions in the California Legislature.Two years ago, Gov Schwarzenegger, under the pressure of hospital association lobby groups,  strongly opposed the first bill requesting a public report of infection rate. Finally, last year, Bill SB739 was signed into a law, far less demanding for hospitals and simply requesting them to make public certain procedures to lower the rate of infections.

The spokesperson for the public hospital association declared that public reporting “would make hospitals look bad without proposing any solution to  the problem” – thus not admitting that public reporting would certainly force  the industry into investing in solutions to the problem!

Another argument against public reporting was that a large group of hospitals had already found their own ways to report infections rates and, more important, to set up a real task force to tackle hospital-acquired infections: the system is called CHART which stands for Californian Hospital Assessment and Reporting Task Force, composed of hospitals, insurers, researchers and others. Their objective is to produce a  statewide reporting system on hospital performance and quality. The idea Is to create a “gold standard” for the Health Care system. More than 2000 hospitals have agreed to participate in CHART. The first report is expected this winter.

The Californian Healthcare Foundation, a public-interest group, support CHART.