Hospitals across Orange County and around the country are making mistakes that can be harmful, even deadly, to patients, but the public rarely finds out about them. Details of conditions inside Mission Hospital were hidden by the federal government for six months.

The infections that patients pick up inside hospitals can be debilitating and even deadly. Yet many hospitals fail to follow simple protocols, and access to information is limited. Here are five tips for reporting on hospital infections.

During several inspections over the past five years, federal regulators cited the five local hospitals tracked by the Orange County Register nearly 100 times for infection control violations. The most common problems were incorrectly sterilized surgical tools and dirty operating rooms and equipment.