Their report, Adult Hospital Stays with Infection Due to Medical Care, 2007, is recently updated and is available as a PDF download from their website [ http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/reports/statbriefs/sb94.pdf ]. AHRQ is an office operating with our tax dollars to keep research and quality in healthcare.
The report provides some interesting results:
· In 2007, about 45 percent of patients with HAIs were 65 or older, 33 percent were 45 to 64 and 22 percent were ages 18 to 44. However, the 45- to 64-year-old group had the highest rate of HAIs.
· The top three diagnoses in hospitalized adult patients who developed HAIs were septicemia (12 percent), adult respiratory failure (6 percent) and complications from surgical procedures or medical treatment (4 percent).
· The rate of infections among medical and surgical discharges peaked in 2004 and 2005 at 2.3 per 1,000 stays, then declined to 2.03, a rate similar to year 2000.
What this signifies to me is that we need to make sure that our immune system is sturdy before we enter into the hospital for any reason; especially surgery.