- Introduced -

SB 1279 - This act creates the Missouri Hospital Infection Control Act of 2004. This purpose of this act is to encourage hospitals to take appropriate actions to decrease the risk of infection. The Department of Health and Senior Services shall have the authority to issue subpoenas for the investigation of complaints and potential infection outbreaks. All suspected infection outbreaks must be reported to the Department. Furthermore, hospitals must adopt evidence-based control policies, which are subject to review by the Department.

Infection control officers can require hospitals to terminate any practice or procedure which does not meet the standard of care for preventing infections. In addition, hospital infection surveillance measures must be adequate to detect all nosocomial infections. Any manager or supervisor of a hospital who restricts an employee from discussing an aspect of care with the Department shall be guilty of a Class A misdemeanor.

Facilities must perform a root-cause analysis and report to the Department on all cases involving nosocomial infection that resulted in death or a major loss of function. The Department must maintain a database of these reports. Facilities are also required to report methicillin- and vancomycin- resistent infections.

All information collected shall be confidential. However, information regarding the number and frequency of occurrences of staph infections in each hospital or facility shall be available on the Department's internet website or upon request.

This act is similar to HB 1477 (2004).

LORIE TOWE