I haven't read the Frost & Sullivan report. The $30-$80mm figure seems very very low in the context of the health and economic consequences of other health conditions and the amount society is willing to pay for prevention and treatment.
According to the CDC, over 100,000 people in the US die from HAIs annually and it is estimated that 1 in 20 hospital admissions will result in the acquisition of a HAI. The present value cost of these results is estimated to be $35-$45B annually. http://www.cdc.gov/HAI/pdfs/hai/Scott_CostPaper.pdf
In the US, flu claims about half as many lives as HAIs. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/lcod.htm Yet, in 2007, the federal government appropriated $7.65B to manage the issue. Obviously this amount does not does not include the direct costs paid by other forms of government, insurance companies or private citizens and there is an additional material societal cost associated with the loss of productivity, etc.
The simple point is that the HAI problem is very large, both in terms of health and economics. The report you mention may be predicated on the beleif that there are limited technologies available to address the problem; soap doesn't cost much. With the advent of A-Sure and even lesser technologies, healthcare administrators will soon have viable, cost effective means of addressing the problem. Thier failure to do so may well result in higher costs in this litigious society.
Should the F&S estimate prove true, in my view it signals an absolute lack of will to address the growing problem. As we know, their are a variety of initiatives around the US to design more effective cleaning protocols. I don't think this is an issue born out of the lack of awareness of the problem, but a lack of awareness of the solution.
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