The bad news out of Washington these days is more than the state of the economy, We are also losing the battle against germs, specifically in terms of HAIs — hospital-acquired infections. In its March 2010 quality report to Congress, the U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Department found "very little progress" in eliminating HAIs and called for "urgent attention" to the problem. A recent study conducted by the Washington, D.C. think tank, Resources for the Future, indicates that 48,000 Americans the of infections caught while in the hospital each year, and that is prob- ably a conservative figure.
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