Nearly 700 hospitals in the U.S. had higher than expected infection rates for at least one of the six types of infections traced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and hospitals in certain states do much worse than others.
The six categories of infections tracked by the CDC are central-line associated bloodstream infections, catheter-associated urinary tract infections, two surgical site infections, MRSA infections and Clostridium difficile infections.
According to Kaiser Health News, 695 hospitals had higher than expected infection rates for at least one of those infections, based on CDC benchmarks. In 13 states and Washington, D.C., a quarter or more of hospitals fell in this category.
The states are as follows, listed with the percentage of hospitals in that state with at least one infection rate worse than the benchmark:
- Connecticut: 53 percent (16 hospitals)
- Nevada: 48 percent (10 hospitals)
- New Jersey: 46 percent (29 hospitals)
- Arizona: 40 percent (21 hospitals)
- New York: 40 percent (62 hospitals)
- Rhode Island: 36 percent (4 hospitals)
- Massachusetts: 34 percent (21 hospitals)
- South Carolina: 30 percent (16 hospitals)
- California: 28 percent (84 hospitals)
- Utah: 28 percent (7 hospitals)
- Montana: 27 percent (3 hospitals)
- Florida: 26 percent (42 hospitals)
- Colorado: 25 percent (11 hospitals)
The rates for the above hospitals are based on infections in the first nine months of 2013, and in some cases include infections from the last three months of 2012, according to KHN.