To save '$1 trillion' for healthcare reform, clean hospitals: O'Neill

The hospital industry could save hundreds of billions of dollars a year by fighting infections and prescribing medicine more carefully, says ex Alcoa CEO and US Treasury Secretary turned public-spending watchdog Paul O'Neill.

by Joseph N. DiStefano

Published Jul. 6, 2009, 10:53 a.m. ET

While Obama's trying to fix the nation's healthcare system, reformers ought to be copying University of Pennsylvania's Dr. Richard Shannon and others who have found ways to bring down infection rates, medical errors, ventilator pneumonia, catheter contamination, fall rates, and other basic block-and-tackle hospital problems, writes former US Treasury Sec. Paul O'Neill in NYTimes. Sounds basic.