News in brief - Nov. 14, 2011

Millions live in designated medical shortage areas

An estimated 66.8 million Americans live in areas that don't have enough primary care physicians or other primary care health professionals to meet their needs, according to the latest statistics from the Health Resources and Services Administration (bhpr.hrsa.gov/shortage/).

As of Oct. 19, there were 6,422 designated Primary Care Health Professional Shortage Areas nationwide. It would take an estimated 17,803 health professionals to meet needs in those areas, with a ratio of 2,000 patients for each primary care professional.

The designations take into account several factors, such as population, local medical facilities, physician-to-patient ratios, barriers to care and the availability of medical services in contiguous communities.

Other HRSA statistics show that 52.5 million people live in 4,677 designated shortage areas for dental care, and 95.3 million people live in 3,803 designated shortage areas for mental health care.

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$34 million goes to battle hospital infections

The federal government is expanding funding for a program that has helped reduce central-line-associated bloodstream infections by 33%. In November, the Dept. of Health and Human Services' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality announced $34 million in fiscal-year 2011 grants to hospitals, academic medical centers and health researchers to prevent health care-associated infections.

Much of the money is going to the Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program, known as CUSP, which has helped slash bloodstream infections and is now expanding its checklist-based approach to catheter-associated urinary tract infections, surgical site infections and ventilator-associated pneumonia. About one in 20 patients contracts an infection while in the hospital, HHS said. More information about CUSP is available at the AHRQ website (www.ahrq.gov/qual/cusp.htm).

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