PHILADELPHIA – Gov. Edward G. Rendell said Pennsylvania took its first steps in making health care more accessible and eliminating deadly hospital-acquired infections when he officially signed the first pieces of his Prescription for Pennsylvania health care reform plan into law. But, the governor said, there is more health care reform that needs to be passed before Pennsylvanians will have the plan that has been hailed nationally as “sweeping,” “groundbreaking” and the most “complete” state reform proposal yet.
Bills allowing certified registered nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives and dental hygienists to practice to the full extent of their education and training, and a bill to more aggressively attack and eliminate hospital acquired infections were passed by the General Assembly.
The Governor signed the bills during a ceremony at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing – the same site where he initially announced the Prescription for Pennsylvania in January. The event was Web cast to a group of legislators and stakeholders at the VA Healthcare System, University Drive Division in Pittsburgh, another of the Governor’s early stops on his Prescription for Pennsylvania bus tour.
“We started implementing our aggressive health care reform agenda in May with an executive order that established a program to better manage chronic diseases and address health equity issues. Today, we added initiatives so Pennsylvanians will have greater access to health care providers and they will be protected from deadly hospital-acquired infections,” Rendell said. “These are the kinds of common sense programs that improve and save people’s lives and save money. It’s a good start but there is more to do.
“We cannot be satisfied until the rest of my Prescription for Pennsylvania is enacted. It is time to move forward; to take the next step by delivering the health care reforms people are demanding, including my Cover All Pennsylvanians insurance initiative and consumer-oriented health insurance reforms.”
Rendell’s Prescription for Pennsylvania will increase access to affordable health care coverage for every uninsured Pennsylvania resident, improve the quality of care and control health care costs for businesses and employees.
The governor’s plan will help to curb soaring health care costs that threaten continued economic expansion and needlessly cost taxpayers billions of dollars a year.
The first set of bills approved by the General Assembly will make it easier for patients to seek appropriate care where and when they need it. It will also help to reduce costs by enabling nurses, advanced nurse practitioners, clinical nurse specialists, nurse midwives, physician assistants and dental hygienists to practice to the fullest extent of their training and skills. For example, Pennsylvania is currently the only state that does not allow nurse midwives to prescribe for their patients or allow advanced-practice nurses to order durable medical supplies like walkers and wheel chairs for their patients. The bills signed today by Rendell remedy that.
“Pennsylvania lags behind many states in fully using all licensed health care providers, and these initiatives will remove barriers that have kept them from practicing to the greatest extent allowed by their education and training,” the governor said.
The second initiative focuses on improving patient safety and containing costs by eliminating hospital- and health-facility-acquired infections. The governor noted that most hospital-acquired infections are avoidable. In Pennsylvania, however, the number of hospital infections reported last year was 19,154, which led to nearly 2,500 deaths and more than $3.5 billion in hospital charges.
One example of a hospital- and health-facility-acquired infection specifically addressed in the Prescription for Pennsylvania is MRSA, a type of drug-resistant bacteria that is commonly carried inactive on the skin but can be deadly if it is introduced into the bloodstream. In 2004, there were 13,722 hospitalizations in Pennsylvania in which the patient had an MRSA infection – a rate of 7.4 per every 1,000 inpatient hospitalizations. Data shows that 8.9 percent of those patients, or 1,221 people, died as a result of contracting MRSA.
MRSA can be virtually eliminated from health centers through simple patient-safety procedures. Groundbreaking work by Pennsylvania’s veteran’s administration hospitals has resulted in the near elimination of MRSA infections in those facilities.
According to the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council, or PHC4, the average charge of hospitalization in 2005 for a patient who became infected with a hospital-acquired infection was $185,260 and the average charge for a patient without an HAI was $31,389.
The governor said now that two large components of Prescription for Pennsylvania have been passed and a third on the improved management of chronic diseases is underway by executive order, he is looking forward to working with the legislature to enact the final pieces of his reform plan.
To further expand access to care, the Governor said he will hold to his commitment to enact Cover All Pennsylvanians, or CAP, a program offering affordable basic health coverage to small businesses and the uninsured through the private insurance market.
He said he will also push for passage of common sense insurance reforms that will make it illegal for insurers to use factors other than age, geographic location and family size when setting rates for small groups and individuals and making sure that a small group or individual paying the highest charge for a certain insurance product is paying no more than double those being charged the least.
More information on Rendell’s Prescription for Pennsylvania health care reform plan may be found online.