West Virginia Hospitals Required to Report Health Care Associated Infections

West Virginia House Bill 4418 establishes West Virginia Code 16-5B-17 requiring West Virginia hospitals to report information on health care associated infections in the manner prescribed by the CDC National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN).

The bill establishes a new advisory panel called the Infection Control Advisory Panel responsible for guidance and oversight in implementing the reporting process. The West Virginia Health Care Authority is directed to create the panel and the code spells out the required panel members.

The advisory panel is required to:
(1) Provide guidance to hospitals in their collection of health care associated infections;
(2) Provide evidence-based practices in the control and prevention of health care associated infections;
(3) Establish reasonable goals to reduce the number of health care associated infections;
(4) Develop plans for analyzing infection-related data from hospitals;
(5) Develop healthcare-associated advisories for hospital distribution;
(6) Review and recommend to the West Virginia Health Care Authority the manner in which the reporting is made available to the public to assure that the public understands the meaning of the report; and
(7) Other duties as identified by the West Virginia Health Care Authority .