CDC contacting hospitals with high infection rates

January 12th, 2015

While generally citing continued reductions in key health care associated infections (HAIs), a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention surveillance report also revealed some outliers with high infection rates.

The report looked at data submitted to the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN), the CDC’s premiere infection tracking system, which receives data from more than 11,500 healthcare facilities across all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. Healthcare facilities using NHSN have real-time access to their data for local improvement efforts. The annual report uses a standardized infection ratio (SIR), which represents a red flag for too many infections if a facility exceeds 1.0. Overall, roughly 2% to 9% of the facilities reported SIRs significantly greater than 1.0, or significantly more infections were observed than predicted.

These include:

•54 facilities who had SIRs significantly higher than 1.0 for central line-associated bloodstream infections

•133 facilities who had SIRs significantly higher than 1.0 for catheter-associated urinary tract infections

•25 facilities that had SIRs significantly higher than 1.0 for surgical site infections associated with hip arthroplasty

•30 facilities who had SIRs significantly higher than 1.0 for surgical site infections associated with knee arthroplasty

•20 facilities that had SIRs significantly higher than 1.0 for surgical site infections associated with colon surgery

•15 facilities that had SIRs significantly higher than 1.0 for surgical site infections associated with abdominal hysterectomy

“These are relatively small numbers of facilities compared to the total number of facilities reporting in 2011 (e.g., 3,468 reporting CLABSI, 1,802 reporting CAUTI, 2,130 reporting SSIs),” the CDC concluded. “However, focusing efforts on these facilities may be one strategy to ensure that prevention resources are utilized most wisely in coming years.“

The CDC is contacting the facilities that have significantly high SIRs and connecting them with existing prevention initiatives including:

•State health department collaboratives

•CUSP initiatives funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

•Partnership for Patients initiative

•CMS Quality Improvement Organizations