DETROIT (CBS Detroit) – While hospitals are thought to be sterile, safe environments where sick people get better, not sicker a new investigation by Consumer Reports into hospital-acquired infections says that’s not always the case.
Consumer Reports has expanded its hospital Ratings and, for the first time, includes information about two common and deadly infections: MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus) and C. diff (clostridium difficile).
Every year an estimated 648,000 people in the U.S. develop infections during a hospital stay and about 75,000 die, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That’s more than twice the number of people who die each year in car crashes.
The latest hospital Ratings are included in the report, “How Your Hospital Can Make You Sick,” available at ConsumerReports.org.