The New York City public hospital system published its second round of statistics on quality of care in its 11 hospitals on its web site, including results that showed a dramatic drop in hospital-acquired infections over the last two years.

Since 2005, HHC achieved a 55 percent reduction in the rate of central line blood stream infections and a 78 percent reduction in the rate of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) among adult patients in intensive care units. Over the last two years, the rates of VAP dropped from 10.5 to 2.3, with the majority of ICUs reaching a rate of 1.5 or less. Central line infections dropped from 7.6 to 3.4, with a majority of ICUs reaching a rate of 2 or less.

"Hospital-acquired infections such as central line infections and ventilator-associated pneumonias can be life-threatening, especially for critically ill patients," said HHC President Alan Aviles. "These preventable infections continue to be all too common in hospitals across the nation, but our aggressive focus on evidence-based prevention practices is helping us get closer to our goal of eradicating such infections from our intensive care units."

In addition to the progress in preventing hospital-acquired infections, the 2007 calendar year data on HHC’s web site show that its system-wide mortality rate continued to stay below relevant national benchmarks. HHC had a 1.52 percent mortality rate in 2007, compared to 1.70 percent in 2003. Overall, the system-wide mortality rate for HHC hospitals decreased by 11 percent from 2003-2007, even though average patient severity of illness increased significantly during this time period.

Besides updating data first published last year, HHC also released new statistics that reflect the corporation’s performance in helping patients better manage their asthma and diabetes, as well as the number of life-saving screenings HHC provides each year for breast and colon cancer, HIV and deep vein thrombosis. The web site also now shows how many flu shots were given and how many people enrolled in programs to quit smoking.

"We are committed to keeping our communities healthy through robust education, prevention, and regular screening for early detection and treatment," said Aviles.

The new data is available on the HHC web site, nyc.gov/hhc. Last September 2007, HHC became the first hospital system in New York to make a range of previously confidential quality and patient safety performance measures publicly available.

"We plan to keep expanding the data that we share with the public on our web site. Our transparent reporting of these numbers underscores our commitment to quality and our willingness to be held accountable for doing our best to ensure the health of the communities we serve," Aviles said.