Pennsylvania Health Department reports on hospital infections

The report also found 2,117 cases of MRSA - Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, representing 8.2 percent of the total. The report suggests that MRSA is being replaced as a major culprit in hospital infections by another bacterium - Clostridium difficile - that causes severe gastrointestinal infections. Such infections accounted for nearly 20 percent of the total.

The report cautioned against comparing hospitals based on their infection rate. Starting next month, the state will audit each of the hospitals to ensure accurate reporting.

The detailed look at urinary tract and bloodstream infections also adjusts for the type of hospital and the severity of illness.

While imperfect, those adjustments were the best approach to estimating the risk of infections at each hospital and judging how well an institution avoided the preventable ones, said Stephen Ostroff, director of the state's Bureau of Epidemiology.

"There is no way to do a perfect analysis of hospital-acquired infection data, to be able to adjust or control for every unique facet or feature of every hospital in the state," Ostroff said. "The methodology that we have been using to do this analysis is the gold standard for trying to do that sort of risk-adjusting."