Half of deadly infections acquired in hospitals: MedCity Morning Read, Feb. 24, 2010

Highlights of the important and the interesting from the world of health care:

Half of deadly infections acquired in hospitals: A new study in the Archives of Internal Medicine paints a disturbing picture of hospitals’ infection-control efforts. The study “links about half of all infection deaths directly to infections acquired in the hospital in the course of care,” the Wall Street Journal reports. That, according to an accompanying editorial by two Johns Hopkins physicians, is “unconscionable.” In all, nearly 50,000 people die each year from pneumonia and sepsis, a blood stream infection. Both are preventable with adequate infection control and cost the U.S. health system about $8 billion a year, according to the study.

One problem limiting hospitals infection-control efforts is simply money. Even if doctors support stepping up infection control, it can be tough to justify such big spending when it won’t bring in any revenues to cash-strapped hospitals. Further, the federal government’s 2008 decision to penalize hospitals by not giving them Medicare reimbursement for so-called “never” events isn’t adequate to substantially reduce infections, the author says. Unfortunately for hospitals, the only thing that may twist their arms into investing the time, money and resources necessary to significantly reduce infections could be a little public embarrassment.

Questions about the health summit: With Thursday’s much-hyped health summit almost upon us, the New York Times takes a look at some key questions surrounding the event. The first of which, of course, is “Isn’t the meeting just for show?” And the answer is, “Yes, pretty much, though not entirely.” Anyone who’s been following the debate knows that, quite logically, Republicans have no interest in passing any sort of health care bill. They view any passed health bill as the appearance of success for President Obama, and rightly figure that what’s good for Obama is politically bad them (never mind whether it’d be good for the American people).

So forget about bipartisanship. The real audience Obama needs to reach at the summit is skeptical Congressional Democrats, many of whom are no doubt terrified by their prospects for re-election if they vote for what could be unpopular health-reform legislation. So building popular support is clearly another of reform supporters’ key objectives at the summit.

Who isn’t at risk for major depression? According to an Eli Lilly-sponsored test on WebMD, the answer is “no one.” The test, or “sponsored fluff” as Bnet calls it, is clearly marked as being funded by the drugmaker, though that hasn’t stopped Sen. Charles Grassley from investigating the ties between WebMD and Big Pharma. In any case, the 10-question test is a bit of a joke, and should be an embarrassment to Lilly. It’s structured such that “yes” answers indicate depression, but even if you answer “no” to all 10, you still receive a message that you “may be at risk for major depression.” Further, as Bnet points out, some of the questions could easily lead someone who isn’t depressed to answer “yes” and appear at-risk for depression. Clearly, plenty of those who aren’t depressed may “have trouble concentrating” and “feel tired every day.” Ridiculous advertisements like this one aren’t doing anything to improve Big Pharma’s already battered public image.

5 ways to make a startup attractive to VCs: The president of Dolphin Equity, writing at VentureBeat, lists five ways to make a startup interesting to a venture capitalist. One not surprisingly, involves a willingness to change “your leadership style” to one that’s amenable to “input” (some entrepreneurs may read that as “meddling” or “interference”) from VCs. Others include explaining why the startup is a “must-have” vs. a “nice-to-have” and why your startup’s delivery model is relevant.