Nevertheless, the report will now be used to benchmark hospitals, giving them a baseline from which they must improve or face sanctions if they do not.
Hospital infections cause a vast amount of harm, which experts say can often be prevented. Across the country, an estimated 1.7 million patients get infections during care, and 99,000 die each year as a result, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Pennsylvania has been a leader in public reporting of such infections, first through the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council and now by the Department of Health.
In announcing the report Thursday, Gov. Rendell said eliminating infections remains urgent for two reasons.
It "prevents unnecessary illnesses and deaths, and it also helps to eliminate the avoidable costs of treating these infections," he said, adding, "There is still more important work remaining to be done."
Several hospitals in the Philadelphia region fared poorly in two areas: those involving urinary catheters, the thin tubes placed in a bladder to drain urine, and those involving central lines, IVs threaded into large blood vessels to deliver nutrients and medicines.
Area hospitals that had higher-than-expected rates of both kinds of infections included Albert Einstein Medical Center, Methodist Hospital, Temple University Hospital, and Children's Hospital in the city, as well as Lower Bucks Hospital in Bucks County.
Children's "has devoted considerable resources to eliminating hospital acquired infections for our pediatric patients," said Kathy Shaw, interim patient safety officer. "Our data in 2010 show significant improvement, with a 40 percent reduction since this report."
Temple said that it is working to eliminate these infections using several strategies and would continue its "aggressive and sustained efforts."
