A low number of infections likely means that many are not being reported, experts said.
"That number is certainly low and out of line with the rest of the state," said P.J. Brennan, chief medical officer of the University of Pennsylvania Health System.
The result indicates hospitals here "are not thinking enough about health-care-acquired infections as patient-safety issues," he said.
Infections are one of the biggest killers in the health system. About two million hospital patients get infections during treatment for unrelated illnesses, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Hospital-acquired infections kill an estimated 90,000 a year.
Experts on health-care safety say finding, and reporting, infections and other harmful events is a critical first step in reducing errors. Hospitals that report more infections are likely to do better in eliminating them.
Area hospitals also reported lower rates of serious events - unanticipated injuries to patients that result in death or serious harm - than facilities in other parts of the state.
Hospitals in the Southeast region (Philadelphia, Bucks, Delaware, Chester, Montgomery, Lancaster, Berks and Schuylkill Counties) disclosed 1,455 serious events - or about one-fifth of the state total.
But those counties provide two-fifths of the care.
One issue that drives underreporting is the fear of litigation. Philadelphia remains a national center for medical malpractice cases. Many doctors and hospitals in this area have been hit hard by rising insurance costs and must be persuaded that they can report errors to the safety authority without opening the floodgates to more lawsuits.
