(Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality: Rockville, MD) -- Improvements in patient safety continue to lag, according to the “2009 National Healthcare Quality Report” and the “2009 National Healthcare Disparities Report,” issued April 13 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Agency (HHS) for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Very little progress has been made on eliminating health care-associated infections (HAIs), according to a new section in the 2009 quality report. For example, of the five types of HAIs in adult patients who are tracked in the reports:

• Rates of postoperative sepsis, or bloodstream infections, increased by 8 percent.
• Postoperative catheter-associated urinary tract infections increased by 3.6 percent.
• Rates of selected infections due to medical care increased by 1.6 percent.
• There was no change in the number of bloodstream infections associated with central-venous catheter placements, which are tubes placed in a large vein in the patent’s neck, chest, or groin to give medication or fluids or to collect blood samples.
• Rates of postoperative pneumonia improved by 12 percent.

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