Though his book is dated now, Levin (an emeritus professor who works for the World Health Organization) said his book "established a framework for the problem. We often don't put [such deaths] in the larger context of the general quality of healthcare, from financing to the participation of local people in decision-making. It's part of the culture: we believe in that system and belief often leads to a passive acceptance of reality, that bad things can happen. If we're going to attack these complications effectively," Levin added, "we have to work on several fronts â€" management of personnel, including doctors and nurses, but first, the public has to be aware there's a problem. There's a need for public oversight, like this new law," which creates a committee to study the problem and issue a report next year that suggests ways to reduce hospital infections. Hospitals in the state must start reporting these cases in 2008, and the committee will issue a report annually thereafter.

Levin said that's a step in the right direction, but he'd like to see reports "every month in the local newspapers; let the public compare rates at different hospitals."

Jim Mason of New Britain wishes the law had been in place when his father was hospitalized in 2004. He died in March 2005 of a deadly hospital-acquired staphylococcus infection. On the website of the Connecticut Center for Patient Safety, Mason recounted his father's treatment that included: excessive morphine that contributed to muscle contractions in his throat; improper installation of a feeding tube that collapsed his lung; poor communication with and among hospital personnel; proximity to very ill patients while in a compromised state that assured his exposure to infection; and inadequate infection control hygiene among staff members.

"In all the talk about health care reform and accessibility and quality," he wrote, "we have ended up with a health care system that is not working. At least it isn't working for the patient. Payment sources, schedules, technology all come first. Our system is not patient-centered. Our health care system seems to have evolved into something that we do not want while common sense has been left behind."
Now Mason's mother is a patient at New Britain General Hospital with a life-threatening illness, and he noticed something he had never seen before. "Every single room has a poster saying, 'Be a partner in your health care. Ask your health care provider if they have washed or sanitized their hands before touching you.'"

Mason said he hopes the new law will help reduce the kind of tragedy that his family had to live through. "I think it's going to raise the bar higher â€" doctors, nurses, everybody involved in caring for patients will have to be more hygiene-conscious. In my own experience, a nurse may go from one patient to another without changing her gloves. They'll have to maintain a level of hygiene and specific guidelines will hopefully inhibit the spread of germs."

Betsy McCaughey is a health policy expert and founder and chairwoman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths. Her organization advocates the kind of law that Connecticut's General Assembly just passed. She said experience shows that mandatory reporting can definitely reduce iatrogenic morbidity and mortality (hospital-caused illness and death). "In 1989 the New York State Health Department began requiring the reporting of deaths from coronary surgery," she said. "The death rate went way down when hospitals made doctors with the highest mortality rates stop doing it â€" those were mostly doctors who had less experience doing the procedure. A patient was four times more likely to die if one of those doctors did that procedure than if other docs did," she says. She's a firm believer that requiring hospitals to file reports of hospital-induced infections and other medical errors motivates those institutions to improve.

Jean Rexford, executive director of the Connecticut Center for Patient Safety, said that CDC data, extrapolated for Connecticut, indicates that up to three people a day die from hospital-related infections. "And as important as those deaths is that the CDC estimates 21,000 to 42,000 people who enter hospitals in Connecticut each year get an infection, often life-threatening, particularly the elderly," Rexford says, adding that other studies of the problem show the CDC numbers to be conservative. She said the Connecticut Hospital Association (CHA) reported for a 12-month period last year only three hospital-caused infections in the entire state, which she says indicates the dire need for a mandated reporting system. "Less than 10 percent of hospital-related infections are reported, and often they're masked by other diagnoses. "

No one from the CHA would comment for this story, but the following note on the organization's website says this about the new law: "CHA is pleased to report that the House and Senate passed a significantly modified and improved version of SB160, An Act Concerning Hospital Acquired Infections, reflecting CHA's efforts to ensure that hospitals have a role in shaping a statewide infection reporting system and that the system will be based on standardized, scientifically proven measures."