Soon it will be easier for you to find out how well your hospital prevents certain infections. As part of the new health care reform law, the Department of Health and Human Services will require hospitals to publicly disclose several types of dangerous hospital infections. To ensure full cooperation, the government will boost Medicare payments to hospitals that go along with the new requirements.

"Patients shouldn't have to worry about getting sicker with an infection they catch in the hospital, but every year nearly two million Americans do," said Lisa McGiffert, Director of Consumers Union's Safe Patient Project. "Making infection rates public is a powerful motivator for hospitals to improve care and keep patients safe."

Starting in January of 2011, hospitals will report on central-line bloodstream infections in intensive care and neonatal units. Central-line infections are responsible for about 30 percent of the approximately 99,000 infection-related deaths each year, and as we reported in a recent investigation, they are almost entirely preventable. In 2012, hospitals will also have to report on surgical site infections—infections that occur during or after an operation. Reporting is likely to expand after that. All of the data will be available on the federal website, Hospital Compare.