Healthcare-associated Infections

CDC's National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN)
Healthcare-associated Infections Summary Data Reports

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion is the government agency charged with tracking and preventing healthcare-associated infections in healthcare facilities such as hospitals, long-term care facilities and outpatient medical facilities. Healthcare facilities report infections directly into CDC's monitoring system called National Healthcare Safety Network either voluntarily or because their state requires reporting of one or more infection type.

Information collected through NHSN includes central-line associated infections, catheter-associated urinary tract infections, surgical site infections, ventilator-associated pneumonia, blood transfusion infections and more. Many different types of healthcare facilities from every state in the country report to NHSN.

CDC scientists have studied this information and reported on national HAI infection trends [PDF - 5.37 MB]. This information is then used to identify, test and help implement HAI prevention strategies that work.

HAI Summary Data Report are CDC reports on infection information. These reports include both national data and state-specific data for states mandated by state law to report HAIs. The HAI data reported in these reports include central line-associated bloodstream infection (CLABSI) and surgical site infection (SSI) data.

Abbreviation key:

CDC = U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
HHS = U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
HHS Action Plan = U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Action Plan to Prevent Healthcare-associated Infections
NHSN = National Healthcare Safety Network
Recovery Act = American Reinvestment and Recovery Act
SIR = Standardized Infection Ratio