Following the death last month of a 12-year-old Brooklyn boy, Omar Rivera, from a so-called superbug, medical specialists met at New York Hospital last week to discuss treatment options and preventative measures — including better hygiene.

They will need to take action swiftly. The child’s heartbroken mother, Aileen Rivera, is bringing a $25 million lawsuit against Kings County Hospital for “negligence, recklessness and carelessness.” A superbug is an infection, such as MRSA, that is resistant to most and occasionally all antibiotics. MRSA, or methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, is the most famous superbug. We are no fans of frivolous lawsuits and Mrs. Rivera’s case against the hospital does not appear strong: Omar was an outpatient and the doctor who treated him had no obvious reason to suspect MRSA.

The Rivera tragedy calls attention to the root of the problem: an unacceptable weakening of sound health care practice, which is leading to the presence of superbugs in schools and other public places, as well as hospitals.

The chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths, Betsy McCaughey, believes that Health Care Asssociated Infections or HAI may well be “the next asbestos.” We’re already seeing class actions lawsuits against hospitals. RID is trying to help hospitals address their problems.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, up to 2 million Americans contract HAIs every year, resulting in approximately 88,000 deaths and $4.5 billion in extra costs. While medical technology is improving and new drugs are being developed, HAI incidence, especially of deadly superbugs such as MRSA and Clostridium difficile, is increasing. In 1974, MRSA infections accounted for 2% of the total number of staph infections. By 2004, it was up to 64%, most contracted in or compounded by a hospital stay. In New York’s Monroe County, health care associated MRSA increased by over 37% in the last year alone.

The main cause is lackadaisical health professionals and unclean hospitals, left unchecked by ill-informed consumers and the government. Some medical professionals, eager to treat more patients, may cut corners in the name of “efficiency.” According to figures cited by the CDC, less than half of medical professionals adhere to their hospital’s hygiene protocol, including basic procedures such as hand-washing.

Hospital management is not much better: Boston University researchers examined 49 operating rooms and found over half the objects that should have been disinfected were not.

Research from John Hopkins University found that 26% of hospital supply cabinets were contaminated by MRSA, 21% by vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus. Without disinfection, surfaces such as cabinets or keyboards easily play host to deadly bacteria that are transmitted by health professionals — even those who otherwise practice good hygiene.

Because it is difficult to differentiate between diseases that are exclusively caused by poor health care practice, federal regulators have shied from holding hospitals directly accountable for their HAI incidences. If HAIs were routinely reported and funding suffered for locations with high rates, it might encourage hospitals to turn away patients more likely to succumb to HAI.

Current funding structures may actually encourage HAI incidence. In the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reimbursement process, higher payments are paid to hospitals when patients develop clinically significant complications — including HAIs — after admission.

This has created a situation in which “hospitals that improved patient safety and ameliorated problems such as nosocomial [hospital acquired] infections saw their Medicare revenues — and sometimes their profits — reduced,” an associate professor of health economics and policy at Harvard University, Dr. Meredith Rosenthal, reported in the New England Journal of Medicine in October.

Still, CMS reimbursement aside, long-term economic interest demands that hospitals reduce their HAI rates, especially as patients grow increasing litigious. Some HAI cases already represent net losses for hospitals.

At Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pa., patients who acquired central line-associated bloodstream infections cost the hospital an additional $26,000 per case. If the Rivera case is any indication, hospitals may find themselves susceptible to pricy litigation as well.

Public and private agencies are making gestures toward reform. New York State’s Emerging Infections Program pledged to conduct a survey to assess the impact of control efforts on MRSA rates in Monroe County hospitals.

Legislation mandates that the state institute a statewide hospital infection reporting system by 2009. And the CMS decided to disallow incremental payments associated with eight secondary conditions viewed as “preventable.”

While greater accountability and transparency will help, doctors worry that some of the proposed reforms, such as a requirement to test all surfaces for bacteria, may divert time and resources from patient treatment.

There is a balance to be struck between good health practice and overly cumbersome regulation. Requirements should be supported by evidence-based practice of what actually works. The University of Pittsburg Medical Center reported a 78% decrease in severe cases of Clostridium difficile, almost uniquely caught in hospitals and nursing homes, after it instituted an infection control and early identification program.

One hospital in Dorchester, England was able to reduce the spread of MRSA by almost 90% by doubling cleaning-staff hours on one ward, a change that saved 312 times the added cleaning costs.

Ms. McCaughey advises working with hospitals to help them improve their cleaning services as a most “cost-effective method of infection control,” encouraging patients to take 15 preventative steps, some of which they can do before going to the hospital. One is bathing in antibacterial washes prior to surgery. Also, training the next generation of medical students in good hygiene practices, which RID does, helps reduce the likelihood of future infections.

These are simple, common sense steps. Given that America spends approximately $2.1 trillion on health care each year, they are cheap and comparatively cost-effective. Improving hygiene may not be glamorous, but it will save lives. Hospitals better clean up their act or else many more deaths and lawsuits will occur.

Mr. Bate, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is a co-author of “First, Do No Harm,” a paper published last month by AEI on HAIs. Karen Porter, who contributed to this article, is a research assistant at AEI.