Hospitals' Struggles to Beat Back Familiar Infections Began Before Ebola Arrived

While Ebola stokes public anxiety, more than 1 in six hospitals—including some top medical centers—are having trouble stamping out less exotic but sometimes deadly infections, federal records show.

Nationally, about 1 in every 25 hospitalized patients gets an infection, and 75,000 people die each year from them—more than from car crashes and gun shots combined. A Kaiser Health News analysis found 695 hospitals with higher than expected rates for at least one of the 6 types of infections tracked by the CDC. In 13 states and the District of Columbia, a quarter or more of hospitals that the government evaluated were rated worse than national benchmarks the CDC set in at least one infection category, the KHN analysis found.

Read the full article at Kaiser Health News: http://bit.ly/1rqbNSk