The Beacon Collaborative, a voluntary affiliation of 39 hospitals in five San Francisco Bay Area counties, announced today that reductions in the occurrence of two major types of hospital infections between April 1, 2006 and December 31, 2007 saved approximately 194 lives.  The estimate of lives saved is based on a statistical analysis of mortality for ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP), and central line-associated bloodstream infections (CL-BSI), two infections that frequently occur in hospital intensive care units.

During the 21-month study period, hospitals participating in the Collaborative reduced VAP by 60 percent and CL-BSI by 66 percent. This resulted in 720 fewer infections than projected during the study period.  The VAP improvement exceeds the best results reported by the National Healthcare Safety Network for 2006.  The CL-BSI improvement meets or exceeds results reported in December 2006 in the New England Journal of Medicine for the highly respected Keystone Center for Patient Safety & Quality in Michigan.

Based on the Beacon analysis, the 120 lives saved by reducing VAP saved approximately $1.2 million, and the 74 lives saved by reducing CL-BSI infections saved approximately $2.7 million.

“The Bay Area is becoming a national model of patient safety and Beacon has emerged as one of the primary resources and catalysts for hospitals committed to reducing VAP and CL-BSI infections, as well as other hospital related errors or conditions,” said Bruce Spurlock, MD, Beacon’s executive director. “We constantly hear from hospital quality leaders how Beacon-sponsored collaboration with peers in the same geographic area, serving similar patient populations, enables them to learn from each other and adapt best practices, even though the hospitals themselves often compete fiercely for market share within their communities.”

For the complete press release, please contact Beacon.