HAIs: Reports and Data

Data highlights

From the National and State Healthcare-Associated Infections Progress Report

• At the national level, among acute care hospitals there were significant decreases observed for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) (16%), central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI) (13%), C. difficile infection (CDI) (13%), CAUTI (11%), and ventilator-associated events (VAE) (5%) between 2022 and 2023. Surgical site infections (SSIs) following abdominal hysterectomy increased by 8% and colon surgery did not change when compared to 2022 standardized infection ratios, (SIRs).
• Additionally, progress was made in reducing HAIs in other healthcare settings.
  • Among inpatient rehabilitation facilities (IRFs), there was a 14% decrease in hospital-onset C.difficile infection and an 8% increase in CAUTI; otherwise, there were no significant changes in CLABSI and hospital-onset MRSA 2023 SIRs compared with 2022.
  • Among long-term acute care hospitals (LTACHs), there was a 13% decrease in hospital-onset C.difficile infection, otherwise, there were no significant changes in 2023 SIRs compared with 2022.
• Highlights of 2023 state performance compared to the 2015 national baseline SIR of 1 from acute care hospitals:
  • 49 states performed better on at least three infection types
  • 4 states performed worse on at least two or more infection types

From the HAI Hospital Prevalence Survey

• On any given day, about 1 in 31 hospital patients has at least one healthcare-associated infection. Patients in the 2015 HAI Hospital Prevalence survey were at least 16% less likely than patients in the 2011 survey to have an HAI.
  • 3% of hospitalized patients in the 2015 survey had one or more HAI.
  • There were an estimated 687,000 HAIs in U.S. acute care hospitals in 2015. About 72,000 hospital patients with HAIs died during their hospitalizations.

HAI data reports

Data sources for HAI and antimicrobial resistance

About the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN)

CDC's NHSN is the nation's most widely used HAI tracking system. NHSN provides facilities, states, regions, and the nation with data needed to identify problem areas, measure progress of prevention efforts, and ultimately eliminate HAIs. In addition, NHSN allows healthcare facilities to track antimicrobial use and resistance, blood safety errors and important healthcare process measures such as healthcare personnel influenza vaccine status and infection control adherence rates.

CDC's annual National and State Healthcare-Associated Infections Progress Report (HAI Progress Report) provides a closer look at the HAIs most commonly reported to CDC's NHSN. This report describes national and state progress in preventing central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI), catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI), select surgical site infections (SSI), hospital-onset C. difficile infections, and hospital-onset methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteremia (bloodstream infections). The current HAI Progress Report is accessible via the Data Portal; previous HAI Progress Reports are accessible in the Data Archive.

About the Emerging Infections Program Healthcare-Associated Infections – Community Interface (EIP HAIC)

CDC's Emerging Infections Programs (EIP) is a national resource utilized for surveillance, prevention, and control of emerging infectious diseases. EIP is a network of state health departments and their collaborators in local health departments, academic institutions, other federal agencies, and public health and clinical laboratories; infection preventionists; and healthcare providers.

The EIP's Healthcare-associated Infections – Community Interface Activity (HAIC) engages a network of state health departments and their academic medical center partners to help answer critical questions about emerging HAI threats, advanced infection tracking methods, and antibiotic resistance in the United States. Information gathered through this activity will play a key role in shaping future policies and recommendations targeting HAI prevention.

About HAI Prevention Goals and the HHS HAI Action Plan

The United States has made significant progress toward our collective goal of eliminating HAIs, and as a result, healthcare in the US is safer now than it was even 10 years ago. Building upon this success and continuing towards the elimination of HAIs is critical.

In 2009, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services published the National Action Plan to Prevent Health Care-Associated Infections: Road Map to Elimination (HAI Action Plan), which set specific five-year goals for HAI prevention. CDC plays an important role in this plan by producing data that prompt action, leading the country in tracking, preventing and ultimately eliminating HAIs. These data also help pinpoint areas of further improvement that allow for the continued progress.

Additionally, CDC and other federal agencies such as Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH) work together to develop tools, recommendations, and programs that offer infection prevention strategies to help protect patients.

The year 2015 marked the start of the new five-year (2015-2020) goals of the HAI Action Plan and a time of important updates and improvements for NHSN. This provided an opportunity to assess prevention progress while strategizing about the best way to move forward as a country.

Antibiotic Resistance & Patient Safety Portal

The Antibiotic Resistance & Patient Safety Portal (AR&PSP) is an interactive web-based application that was created to innovatively display data collected through CDC's National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) and other sources. It offers enhanced data visualizations through 4 main components:

• Antibiotic Resistance– with data from NHSN and the AR Lab Network
• Antibiotic Use and Stewardship – with data from NHSN (Antibiotic Stewardship) and Xponent database from Quintiles IMS (Antibiotic Use)
• Healthcare-Associated Infections – data display for the National and State Healthcare-Associated Infections Progress Report
• Geographic Location – for the nation and a state, view HAI data, AR data, and Antibiotic Stewardship data together on one page