After Medicare’s Hospital-Acquired Conditions Payment Policy came into effect, infections, such as central-line-associated bloodstream infections, decreased in hospitals with low operating margins.

In fact, it was in the hospitals with the least amount of money at their disposal that the improvement in infection rates was best. In the first year of the policy, there was a 3% decline in bloodstream infections per quarter, according to new research.

However, although the policy ended reimbursement for infections that were acquired in the hospital, infection rates in American hospitals as a whole were unchanged.

According to the research the pair presented at the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology 2015 Annual Meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, resource-constrained hospitals actually reduced their infection rates after the policy was implemented.

Read more at www.medscape.com