Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I am here to speak about a report that was released by the Centers for Disease Control, which I think is instructive for the American health care system. We are currently in a process of change in health care. Changing the way health care is delivered in our country is going to take years of hard work, of experimentation, and of learning. There are stakeholders on both the Federal and State level who are out there right now, working to implement models of care that increase the coordination and efficiency with which health care is delivered, improve the quality of the care that is delivered, improve the outcomes that patients experience, and control costs--bring down costs. This delivery system reform is the real issue of health care reform in our time. I emphasize, it is a win- win for system--improving the quality of care while lowering the cost for the system. This report, called ``Vital Signs,'' released this week by the Centers for Disease Control, illustrates how just one type of quality reform, reducing hospital-acquired infections, has already improved health outcomes and resulted in significant cost savings. Hospital- acquired infections are a tragic reality of our health care system. Nearly 1 in every 20 hospitalized patients in the United States is affected by a hospital-acquired infection each year. The most deadly of these infections occurs when a tube inserted into a patient's vein is either not put in properly or not kept clean.…”