To the Editor: Cheng and colleagues provide a perspective on how to better report and interpret hospital infection data.1 They suggest that the National Health Performance Authority (NHPA) report on rates of Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia (SAB) across comparable public hospitals2 would have benefited from the use of alternative statistical approaches, such as funnel plots.
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- 1. Cheng AC, Woolnough E, Worth LJ, Pilcher DV. How should we interpret hospital infection statistics? Med J Aust 2013; 199: 735-736. <MJA full text>
- 2. National Health Performance Authority. Hospital performance: healthcare-associated Staphylococcus aureus bloodstream infections in 2011–12. Sydney: NHPA, 2013. http://www. myhospitals.gov.au/publications/sab/may-2013/report (accessed Dec 2013).
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