Deaths from hospital-related infections are underreported

Hospital-acquired infections are a serious concern for physicians and patients alike—they can be deadly, especially as antibiotic resistance grows, and their rate of incidence can be an important metric for CMS and other consumer reports when rating hospital quality and safety. And that’s not to mention the potential personal and legal risk some physicians could face.

So it makes sense that hospitals would want to reduce the number of times such an infection is listed on a death certificate. But the Los Angeles Times reported that some physicians are dealing with that goal not by reducing incidence of infection, but just by listing a more specific or more general cause of death on death certificates.

According to the LA Times, a 2014 study found that infections are actually the number one cause of hospital deaths (over heart disease and cancer, even) when properly recording them as cause of death. (Researchers compared insurance bills to death certificates to find the disparity.)

One doctor at Johns Hopkins told the paper he believes such infections (and other poorly delivered medical care) are at least the third-most common cause of death for Americans overall and are not reported properly.

According to CDC estimates, the official number of 75,000 hospital infection-related deaths a year might be 140 percent lower than in reality. And though the agency recommends hospitals report cases of certain kinds of infections, such as sepsis or a class of infections called carbapenem-resistant enterobacteriaceae, many don’t.

The underlying causes of many deaths are never officially reported, and hospitals that see those infections aren’t monitored or incentivized to make sure the infections don’t spread.

Check out the Los Angeles Times to see the stories of individual patients in California whose real causes of death by hospital infection may have been obscured on their death certificates.