COUDERSPORT – Charles Cole Memorial Hospital has made
significant improvements in reducing hospital acquired infections,
particularly urinary tract infections, officials said Monday, but
new state-of-the art technology should go far in catching any
infections more quickly and treating them before they get a
hold.

The hospital has purchased software for the MedMined Data Mining
Surveillance service which provides real time analysis and related
technical, clinical and financial consulting services to health
care facilities.

The system, among other things, automatically analyzes patient
test results and immediately reports on them, a procedure which
presently is not completed until a doctor looks at records, often
after the patient has been discharged.

A $36,000 grant from Highmark Foundation will pay part of the
cost of the system, with CCMH picking up another approximately
$30,000.

A year ago, CCMH was one of five hospitals that received a grant
from the Jewish Health Care Foundation as part of a pilot program
to see what could be done to reduce infections that patients get
after they are admitted to a hospital.

As part of that program, CCMH reduced urinary tract infections,
the most common type of hospital acquired infection, by 79 percent,
Dr. Syed Bhat, chair of the Infection Control Committee,
reported.

CCMH CEO David Acker said the reduction came largely as a result
of the introduction of strict protocols on how urinary catheter
patients are handled and by the purchase and use of silver
impregnated catheters, which counter infections.

Acker also reported on a study at Allegheny General Hospital
which had tracked patient infections and their causes, leading to
changes that had reduced such infections from 37 in 2003, with 16
resulting in death, to 19 last year, with only one death.

He and others from CCMH went to Allegheny General to learn more
about the techniques used, Acker said.

As part of the JHCF pilot program, CCMH agreed to track and
report one four kinds of hospital acquired infections, becoming a
model for other hospitals, Marc Volavka, executive director of the
Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council, said.

In presenting the Highmark Foundation grant, Volavka said the
hospital should be commended for taking the lead in reporting and
in implementing the MedMined technology, which is now used by 195
hospitals in 26 states, but is rare in smaller rural hospitals.

He also noted that CCMH was unique in receiving both the Jewish
Health Care and Highmark Grants.

Both men stressed that not only are hospital acquired infections
often deadly to patients, they are costly to hospitals, insurance
companies and anyone who pays for health care.

According to the Cost Containment Council, the average insurance
payment for a patient who acquired and infection after being
admitted to a hospital was $60,678, while the overall average for a
hospital stay for others was $8,078,

The total insurance cost for such infections nationwide in 2004
was estimated at $613 million, and Acker noted that the payments
seldom match the actual costs to hospitals.

Patients who get an infection while in a hospital are seven
times more likely to die than those who don’t Volavka noted.