State-Mandated Hospital Infection Reporting Is Not Associated With Decreased Pediatric Health Care-Associated Infections.

Objectives: State governments increasingly mandate public reporting of central line-associated blood stream infections (CLABSIs). This study tests if hospitals located in states with state-mandated, facility-identified, pediatric-specific public CLABSI reporting have lower rates of CLABSIs as defined by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's Pediatric Quality Indicator 12 (PDI12).

Methods: Utilizing the Kids' Inpatient Databases from 2000 to 2009, we compared changes in PDI12 rates across three groups of states: states with public CLABSI reporting begun by 2006, states with public reporting begun by 2009 and never-reporting states. In the baseline period (2000-2003), no states mandated public CLABSI reporting. A multivariable, hospital-level random intercept, logistic regression was performed comparing changes in PDI12 rates in states with public reporting to changes in PDI12 rates in never-reporting states.

Results: 4,705,857 discharge records were eligible for PDI12. PDI12 rates significantly decreased in all reporting groups, comparing baseline to the post-public reporting period (2009): Never Reporters 88% decrease (95% CI, 86%-89%), Reporting Begun by 2006 90% decrease (95% CI, 83%-94%), and Reporting Begun by 2009 74% decrease (95% CI, 72%-76%). The Never Reporting Group had comparable decreases in PDI12 rates to the Reporting Begun by 2006 group (P = 0.4) and significantly larger decreases in PDI12 rates compared to the Reporting Begun by 2009 group (P < 0.001), despite having no states with public reporting.

Conclusions: Public CLABSI reporting alone appears to be insufficient to affect administrative data-based measures of pediatric CLABSI rates or children may be inadequately targeted in current public reporting efforts.