You're saying you know that there are some hospitals that have infection rates 10 times higher than other hospitals.

I wanted to inform the Members about an important hearing that was held this morning in the Senate Veterans' Committee. I also wish to thank the Members of the Senate who, in the midst of a very partisan environment last month, voted with…

I thank very much the Senator from Idaho. Let me wrap it up by making the point that Acting Secretary Gibson made this morning which was a very simple but important one. What he said is we must address the immediate crisis of ending these…

If you don't have data and metrics, you don't know how you're doing, you don't know how you compare to anyone else.

I think we need to expand the efforts of the CDC.

Is it not true that many of these settlements will not be made public, that we don't know how many types of settlements have been made because of poor practice?

What kind of insanity is it that we go through the whole effort of somebody diagnosing a disease, here's the therapy, and, oh, it's too bad you can't afford the drugs?

We're going to do this all over the country.

And not only that, but from Massachusetts as well.

The United States, when we compare ourselves with other high-income countries, is right in the middle of the pack.

And we pay for that lack of information and knowledge later on.

If I go into a hospital, is there public information--I'm getting surgery--about the level of infection at the hospital or other preventable deaths?

Get your act together or else.

Patients have been betrayed by the system in which they place their trust

the third leading cause of death in this country has to do with preventable medical errors in hospitals.

Public disclosure is a critical element to preventing these events from happening

I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown). Without objection, it is so ordered. Veterans Health Care

We must create a more just and fair system that encourages discussions without requiring patients' rights in exchange.

the response from policymakers, healthcare leaders, and regulators does not come close to match the scope of this problem

We don't know the exact number, but we are talking probably about hundreds of thousands of people a year dying from preventable problems in hospitals.

If you don't get your infection rate down, you're going to get a cut in the amount of money----

We spend $50,000 on surgery, but we don't spend $500 a day on a social worker to make sure that those things are done.

How do we avoid another hearing 5 or 10 years down the road, where we say, 'oh, we're 25 years after the IOM report and we still have not made much progress?'

as many as 440,000 people a year may die from preventable medical errors in hospitals.

But in terms of cost, if we do a major surgery, and it's not infrequent that people end up coming back into the hospital in a week because they don't take the right medications or get the right food, that's not cost-effective.