FOX 5 Special: Unhealthy Hospitals

ATLANTA (MyFOX ATLANTA) - Every year, more than a million and a half Americans contract an infection in the hospital and sometimes the consequences are deadly. Across Georgia, hospitals are beginning to confront the problem that has dogged them for decades.

Everyone is at risk for infection and the sicker you are, the more at risk you are.

Germs can invade your body through holes in the skin, from things such as catheters and IVs or if you're on a ventilator.

Nate and Cassie Jones' newborn daughter Willa needed all of that support, but it made her vulnerable to an infection her little body just couldn't fight.

The Jones' adopted Cora and then three months later, Ruby was born. Having two toddlers at once feels like a second chance.

"We know it could've been anyone, but it happened to us," said Cassie Jones.

Three years ago, Cassie Jones gave birth to Willa three months premature.

"She weighed 1 pound, 5 ounces when she was born and she spent time at two different hospitals in Atlanta. And she was always on a ventilator. She never came off the ventilator," recalled Jones.

Nate and Cassie Jones said Willa was growing stronger every day.

"We really, really thought she was going to make it," said Cassie Jones.

But then, everything changed. "She was about seven and a half, eight weeks when she became sick with an infection," Cassie Jones said.

"She went from seeming fine to, something is seriously wrong here, in the matter of a few hours," said Nate Jones.

The Joneses said they don't know how but their daughter contracted a lethal infection, known as methicillin-resistant staph aureus, or MRSA.

"We could not have asked for better care, and it still found her," said Cassie Jones. "She was on life support, so we decided that night that we were going to take her off life support, and she died at 5:30 in Nate's arms. And we were shocked, to say the least."

According to the Centers for Disease Control, hospital infections kill nearly a 100,000 Americans every year.

No where are the stakes higher than in the cardiac intensive care unit at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Egelston.

"One thing about plastic and tubes is that it loves bacteria. Bacteria love to attach to it and when it does, then it can get into the blood stream and other areas where bacteria is not supposed to be," said Renee Watkins.

Every time nurse Cassandra Walton touches a baby's line, she knows she could pass along germs.

"You want to prevent any infections, especially in these patients. They can be so sick, there so much more susceptible to any type of infection. So you're always, always aware of it," said Walton.

Georgia has no law requiring hospitals to publicly report their infection rates, and there's no standard to compare one hospital to another.

Maryn McKenna is the author of "Superbug," a new book about MRSA. McKenna said that a lot of patients are left in the dark.

"There are people who say that if we forced hospitals to publicly report their infections, all of their infections, and we made them both identifiable and searchable in the way we do for instance nursing home ratings, than this problem would go away overnight," said McKenna.

For decades, hospitals have viewed infections as just part of the cost of doing business. They happen, and you treat them. But that attitude is changing at places like Piedmont Hospital, where they're not only getting serious about fighting hospital infections, they're going public with their infection rates.

"If anybody asks us, we can say our data is not perfect but this is what we've got," said Dr. Leigh Hamby.

Dr. Hamby, director of quality control for Piedmont Health System's four hospitals, said the goal of being open about infections, is to do more to stop them.

"The real benefit for us is that we can't put this aside and we can't not continue to think about it. It keeps us focused on what we're doing," said Dr. Hamby.

A few metro Atlanta hospitals are gaining ground by educating staff and pushing them to wash their hands.

WellStar Kennestone Hospital, and its three sister hospitals, is taking things one step further by sealing off rooms in between patients. The hospital then pumps the rooms full of a germ-destroying hydrogen peroxide vapor.

"So that the next patient isn't exposed to those pathogens and therefore potentially infected," said Dr. Robert Jansen of WellStar Kennestone Hospital.

Patients can also protect themselves by asking questions.

"Probably the most powerful thing you can do, and it's easy to say, and hard to do, is to challenge everyone who walks into your room, if you are a patient, or a loved one, every single patient who walks into that room, ask them, 'Have you washed your hands?'" said McKenna.

Recently, the cardiac ICU at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta went 29 days without a blood stream infection and Piedmont Hospital and WellStar Kennestone said their infection rates were down too.

"I hope to someday be able to say you can come to any of our hospitals and you will