Treating Pneumonia Safely and Effectively

Pneumonia is a serious lung infection that can be caused by bacteria or a virus. Symptoms include cough, fever and difficulty breathing. With proper treatment, the infection often clears up in two to three weeks. But older adults, babies and people with other diseases can become very ill if they get pneumonia and may need to go to the hospital for treatment.

You can get pneumonia in your daily life — at school or work. When that happens, it’s called community-based pneumonia. You can also get pneumonia while a patient in a hospital or nursing home. In that case, it's called hospital-based pneumonia. When someone with community-based pneumonia arrives at a hospital, it’s important that he or she receives the right treatment as soon as possible.

Choose a link from the list on the left to view reports for a particular hospital.

Click here to learn more about standards that hospitals work toward in the treatment of community-based pneumonia.

Note: Quality measures are not included here if the hospital reported on fewer than 25 such cases.