NHSNCoLab

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Ushering in a new era of NHSN data modernization, innovation, and collaboration for public health surveillance.

The NHSN Collaborative, or NHSNCoLab, is a collaboration between public and private stakeholders to pilot, implement, and validate new National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) healthcare surveillance measures and approaches in alignment with CDC’s Data Modernization Initiative.

The program established a committed network of CDC’s healthcare partners, with institutional commitments, data-use agreements, and technical infrastructure already in place to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of collaboration.

This collaboration will inform new NHSN measures and approaches to healthcare event data collection, including  the feasibility and validity of new NHSN surveillance concepts that support patient safety, quality reporting, national benchmarking, and public health preparedness and response.

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Maximize Data, Minimize Burden: Innovative strategies to strengthen and advance NHSN’s healthcare surveillance capacity by automating data collection, enabling direct data linking between CDC and healthcare partners, and conducting real-world testing

Promote Healthcare Quality
Improve Public Health Surveillance
Support NHSN Partners
How It Works
  • Enroll in NHSNCoLab
    • Facility enrolls in NHSNCoLab by signing the NHSNCoLab Charter Agreement and NHSNCoLab Stipend Acknowledgement.
  • Complete Assessment
    • Facility completes technical assessment.
  • Establish Connectivity in Sandbox
  • Complete NHSN Agreement
    • Facility completes NHSN Agreement to Participate and Consent form.
  • Establish Connectivity in Production
    • NHSN establishes connectivity to facility FHIR R4 API* in EHR Production environment (with PHI/PII data).
  • *HL7, CDA, FHIR and the FHIR [FLAME DESIGN] are the registered trademarks of Health Level Seven International and their use does not constitute endorsement by HL7.
    **Some facilities collaborate on exploratory work prior to FHIR implementation.
    EHR: Electronic Health Record, PHI: Protected Health Information, PII: Personally Identifiable Information.
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Benefits of Collaboration

Access to optimum healthcare data for national surveillance to improve NHSN-data accuracy, quality, and validity.

Improve speed and efficiency to reduce wait times for data transmission between NHSN and its healthcare partners

Advance new healthcare data exchange approaches (e.g., FHIR®)

  • Move towards fully electronic definitions of healthcare-acquired events
  • Minimize reporting burden for facilities and providers

Integrate user perspectives into NHSN surveillance to increase input and adoption from healthcare partners

NHSNCoLab Supported Measures

Planned Measures during 2022-2024

  • Glycemic Control (inpatient medication-related hypoglycemia and inpatient hyperglycemia)
  • Healthcare facility-onset, antibiotic-treated C. difficile infection (CDI)
  • Hospital-onset bacteremia and fungemia (HOB)
  • Healthcare-associated venous thromboembolism (HA-VTE) and VTE prophylaxis
  • Respiratory pathogen surveillance (RPS)
  • Adult sepsis events (ASE) and sepsis outcome
  • Neonatal late onset sepsis / meningitis
  • Opioid-associated adverse events
NHSNCoLab Partner Sites 2024

Map Legend

triange representing the pre-alpha (initiating work) phase – Pre-Alpha (Initiating work)

circle representing the in alpha (sandbox) phase – In Alpha (Sandbox)

square representing the in beta (production) phase – In Beta (Production)

Abbreviations: CDI/HOB = Healthcare facility-onset, antibiotic-treated Clostridioides difficile infection / Hospital-onset bacteremia and fungemia, HA-VTE= Healthcare-associated venous thromboembolism, RPS = Respiratory pathogen surveillance. 
Site Site Name EHR Vendor* Measures Site Leads
1 Billings Clinic Oracle/Cerner Glycemic Control Randy Thompson, MD;
Lisa Ranes, RD, LN, CDCES
2 Geisinger Epic CDI/HOB, RPS Mark Shelly, MD
3 HCA Healthcare Meditech, Allscripts, Oracle/Cerner Glycemic Control, CDI/HOB Kenneth Sands, MD, MPH;
William Gregg, MD, MS, MPH
4 Mass General Brigham Epic Sepsis Sayon Dutta, MD, MPH;
Chanu Rhee, MD, MPH
5 Michigan Medicine Epic Glycemic Control, CDI/HOB, HA-VTE Michael Lanham, MD
6 Nebraska Medicine Epic Glycemic Control Andjela Drincic, MD;
Ron Carson
7 Orlando Health Epic CDI/HOB Eric Rose, Pharm. D.
8 SSM Health Epic RPS Theresa K. Gratton, BSN, RN, CIC
9 University of California, Davis Medical Center Epic Glycemic Control Greg Maynard, MD, MS, MHM;
Yauheni Solad, MD, MHS, MBA
10 University of North Carolina Hospitals Epic CDI/HOB, RPS Lisa Stancill, MPH
11 University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center Epic HA-VTE Aaron Wendelboe, PhD;
Justin Dvorak, PhD
12 University of Rochester Medical Center Epic CDI/HOB Brenda Tesini, MD
13 Yale New Haven Health Epic Glycemic Control Hyung Paek, MD, MSEE
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NHSNCoLab Partner Funding

  • Provided directly to the institution
  • Funds information systems support
  • Calibrated to level of institution engagement and number of measures tested (ranging from approximately $50,000 to $150,000)

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FAQs

NHSN uses NHSNLink, an open-source HL7® FHIR® application hosted behind the CDC firewall to connect securely to a healthcare facility’s EHR system via the  FHIR API. NHSNLink extracts and evaluates data using HL7 quality measure standards, generates patient-level reports, and submits the data  to NHSN’s back-end analytic environment for measure calculations that are provided back to the facility.

Additional information about NHSNLink can be found on the About NHSNLink page and The National Healthcare Safety Network’s (NHSN) digital quality measures publication.

Currently, most of the NHSNCoLab partners are piloting data transmission to NHSN’s FHIR endpoint (NHSNLink) via FHIR R4 API. However, NHSN also has selected use cases involving other methods of data transmission and/or aspects of NHSN measure development and implementation (e.g., early exploration of data elements to support natural language processing identification of healthcare-associated VTE ).

The NHSNCoLab is approaching full capacity for participation, with priority currently being given to children’s hospitals, critical access hospitals, and health systems that fulfill geographical or vendor gaps for pilot implementation. Selected NHSN dQM modules slated to be released in the near future include: Glycemic Control, Medication-related Hypoglycemia, Healthcare-associated, antibiotic-treated C. difficile Infection, and Hospital-onset Bacteremia and Fungemia. These modules will be open to all U.S. hospitals who meet requirements for reporting FHIR dQMs to NHSN (“early adopters”). For additional information about requirements for participation in NHSN dQM modules, please visit the NHSN FHIR portal.

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For additional information, please contact NHSN@cdc.gov

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