California's Healthcare Associated Infections Report: For what it's worth...

California has just released its first statewide report on healthcare associated infections (you can view it here). The metrics reported are healthcare associated VRE bloodstream infections per 1,000 inpatient days, healthcare associated MRSA bloodstream infections per 1,000 inpatient days, and CLABSI in ICUs per 1,000 central line days. The report has major problems as evidenced by the disclaimer on every table of rates that says that the data should not be compared between hospitals, which is generally the whole purpose of public reporting. However, since the reporting period for this report ended, the state mandated that all hospitals join NHSN, which they anticipate will improve the quality of the data reported.