Harming through Protection?

Peter Pronovost and other Johns Hopkins investigators helped 103 ICUs in 67 Michigan hospitals carry out a highly successful infection-control effort, only to run into major problems with federal regulators. Mary Ann Baily writes that the case demonstrates how some regulations meant to protect people risk harming them instead. About 80,000 catheter-related bloodstream infections occur in U.S. intensive care units (ICUs) each year, causing as many as 28,000 deaths and costing the health care system as much as $2.3 billion. If there were procedures that could prevent these infections, wouldn't we encourage hospitals to introduce them? And wouldn't we encourage the development, testing, and dissemination of strategies that would get clinicians to use them? Apparently not, judging from the experience of Peter Pronovost and other Johns Hopkins investigators who helped 103 ICUs in 67 Michigan hospitals carry out a highly successful infection-control effort, 1 only to run into major problems . . .