By PAUL LEVY

Peter Pronovost and his subversive friends are at it again.  Imagine, first they assert that implementation of a standard protocol and checklist could reduce the rate of central line associated bloodstream infections.

“It wouldn’t work here.  Our patients are sicker.”

Then, to make matters worse, they go and contend that reducing the rate of central line infections saves money.  Here’s the abstract from the American Journal of Medical Quality:

This study calculates the costs and benefits of a patient safety program in intensive care units in 6 hospitals that were part of the Michigan Keystone ICU Patient Safety Program. On average, 29.9 catheter-related bloodstream infections and 18.0 cases of ventilator-associated pneumonia were averted per hospital on an annual basis. The average cost of the intervention is $3375 per infection averted, measured in 2007 dollars. The cost of the intervention is substantially less than estimates of the additional health care costs associated with these infections, which range from $12,208 to $56,167 per infection episode. These results do not take into account the additional effect of the Michigan Keystone program in terms of reducing cases of sepsis or its effects in terms of preventing mortality, improving teamwork, and reducing nurse turnover.

“No, it can’t work that way unless we get rid of fee-for-service payments and go to capitation.  We all know that nobody will act to reduce infections because they will get paid less.”

And then he has the nerve to tell us that reporting of central line infections is highly variable across the United States.  Here’s the abstract from that study, again from the AJMQ:

The authors searched state health department Web sites for publicly available CLABSI data. Fourteen states, all with mandatory CLABSI monitoring laws, had publicly available data. The authors identified significant variation in the presentation of infection rates, methods of risk adjustment, locations and care settings reported, time span of data collection, and time lag to reporting. The wide variation in availability and content of information illustrates the need for standardized CLABSI monitoring and reporting mechanisms.

“We’ll publish our numbers in a real-time, standard way when we are good and ready, but our numbers are better than their numbers.”

Paul Levy is the former President and CEO of Beth Israel Deconess Medical Center in Boston. For the past five years he blogged about his experiences in an online journal, Running a Hospital. He now writes as an advocate for patient-centered care, eliminating preventable harm, transparency of clinical outcomes, and front-line driven process improvement at Not Running a Hospital.