Reporting of Healthcare Acquired Infections

The federal government has made recent progress to create reports on specific types of healthcare facilities including infection rates. Details on specific hospitals can be found on -line at a site operated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services .Currently, 33 states and the District of Columbia have reporting , many of the states use a national standard established by CDC called the a National Healthcare Safety Network. States like Pennsylvania have seen positive impacts of their reporting.

Compare Hospitals

This tool can help you compare the quality of care that hospitals provide. It provides a list of U.S. hospitals which includes hospital demographics (location, hospital type) and 44 quality-of-care measures. It also includes data on some Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers.

Select the Patient Safety Measures tab during your hospital search to get information on Healthcare Associated Infections from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Healthcare Safety Network. which is the largest health care-associated infection reporting system in the United States; over 8,000 healthcare facilities participate. Surgical site infections reporting begins in 2012

Compare facilities including nursing homes and dialysis facilities.
http://www.medicare.gov/quality-care-finder/

To get the most information from this new data:

http://www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov/
Enter a zip code and select “Find Hospitals”
Check 3 hospitals to compare, then select the green “Compare” button
Select “Patient Safety measures” in the left column
Scroll all the way down to “New” “Healthcare Associated Infections”
Select “view graphs”
The graph will show if your hospital had zero of these infections or is worse or better compared to similar hospitals nationally and statewide. The “SIR” numbers tell you how much worse or how much better.

Click on a state below to find the current reports for that state

Updated October 2011

27 state laws require public reporting of hospital-acquired infection rates.
2 state laws allow confidential reporting of infection rates to state agencies (NE, NV).
3 states have voluntary public reporting of infection information (AR, AZ, WI).
5 states have study laws on public reporting (AK, GA, IN, NM, NC).
13 states and D.C. have no laws on public reporting of hospital infections, though some have bills pending on the matter.
Of the states that have laws requiring public reporting of hospital-acquired infections, 12 states also have laws requiring the screening and/or reporting of hospital-acquired MRSA rates (CA, CT, IL, MN, NJ, NV, PA, SC, TN, TX, VA, WA). Three states, MA, ME and NY, have legislation pending on the matter as of this update.

The list below is current information as of 4/2012

California

This report by the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) on methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant enterococcus (VRE) bloodstream infections (BSIs) is the first in the United States to use data submitted by California hospitals to CDPH through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) web-based surveillance and reporting system called the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN). The data were reported from April 1, 2010 through March 31, 2011, using NHSN laboratory-based identification of cases. Hospitals were categorized into one of the following four types: major teaching (excluding pediatric), long-term acute care (LTAC), pediatric, and community hospitals. Separation of hospitals into these categories allows comparisons according to types of hospitals and, with caution, between hospitals within these types. The case mix index, a measure of the average severity of illness of patients, is provided for each hospital.

This is the second California Department of Public Health (CDPH) report on Clostridium difficile infections (CDI) and the first using data submitted to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN). California is the second state (after New York) to report hospital CDI rates using NHSN data, and the first to do so statewide.

The California’s Department of Public Health CDPH created the Healthcare Associated Infections interactive map to deliver infection information to consumers that’s less confusing. The map displays more than 300 California hospitals with symbols representing surgical infection rates for about a dozen procedures. Users click a symbol to generate a pop-up box disclosing the hospital’s stats for different surgeries. Data reveals whether the facility’s infection rates are lower, higher or equal to state or national averages.

The map offers general infection data about common operations, supplemented by more detailed information elsewhere on the CDPH website. , “Rates of infection per hospital are compared with the U.S. national average for SSIs.”

Colorado

Colorado Health Data

This report presents data from hospitals, long-term acute care hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers and dialysis treatment centers concerning health facility-acquired infections. Health facility-acquired infections are infections acquired in healthcare facilities by patients receiving care for separate conditions and include surgical site infections, central line-associated bloodstream infections, and dialysis-associated infections.

Learn more from Colorado Department of Public Health

Connecticut

Connecticut Department of Public Health

Under An Act Concerning Hospital Acquired Infections (Public Act 06-142), the Connecticut Department of Public Health was required to submit a report to the Connecticut General Assembly by October 1, 2007 detailing the plan for implementing a mandatory reporting system for healthcare associated infections and the status of the plan. For more information click on the links below:

Delaware

Delaware Quarterly Hospital Infections Reports:

Timely and accurate monitoring remains necessary to gauge progress towards HAI elimination. Public health surveillance has been defined as the ongoing, systematic collection, analysis, and interpretation of data essential to the planning, implementation, and evaluation of public health practice, and timely dissemination to those responsible for prevention and control.

1 Increased participation in systems such as the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) has been demonstrated to promote HAI reduction. This, combined with improvements to simplify and enhance data collection, and improve dissemination of results to healthcare providers and the public are essential steps toward increasing HAI prevention capacity.

The HHS Action Plan identifies targets and metrics for five categories of HAIs and identified Ventilator-associated Pneumonia as an HAI under development for metrics and targets (Appendix 1):

Central Line-associated Blood Stream Infections (CLABSI)
Clostridium difficile
Infections (CDI)
Catheter-associated Urinary Tract Infections (CAUTI)
Methicillin-resistant
Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) Infections
Surgical Site Infections (SSI)
Ventilator-associated Pneumonia (VAP)

Illinois

Illinois Hospital Report Card and Consumer Guide to Health Care

Health care-associated infections, or HAIs, are among the top 10 causes of death in the United States and cost in excess of $20 billion a year. These infections are acquired by patients during the course of receiving treatment for other conditions within a health care setting, including hospitals, nursing homes, ambulatory surgical centers, and community clinics. Many of these infections are preventable with appropriate health care practices. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality reports that “Adults who develop health care-associated infections (HAIs) due to medical or surgical care while in the hospital have to stay an average of 19 days longer than adults who don’t develop an infection.”

Learn more from Illinois Department of Public Health

Maine

Maine Center for Disease Control & Prevention

The prevention of healthcare associated infections is a new initiative of the Maine CDC. The program is part of a national health care reform initiative and is federally funded. Maine has established a Healthcare Associated Infection (HAI) Prevention Plan in order to reduce the prevalence of healthcare acquired infections. Currently, the focus is on Maine hospitals. However, the initiative will eventually be expanded to include other healthcare providers. Maine CDC is working with an advisory body, the Maine Infection Prevention Collaborative, which has representatives from all Maine hospitals. The main goal for 2010-2011 is for hospitals to report certain healthcare acquired infections using uniform definitions and rates through the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN). The current focus is to reduce central line infections, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections, and surgical site infections.

Minnesota

Minnesota Department of Health

HAI data and statistics in Minnesota and the national level including the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) This site gives you a snapshot of hospitals’ performance.

Learn more from Minnesota Hospital Quality Report

Missouri

Missouri Health Care-Associated Infection Reporting

This site displays data on Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAIs) as reported to the Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) by hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers. These facilities are required by state law and regulation to report data on selected HAIs, also known as nosocomial infections.

New Jersey

New Jersey 2011 Hospital Performance Report

Welcome to the New Jersey 2011 Hospital Performance Report, the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services eighth annual report on the quality of care in New Jersey hospitals. Improving patient safety and ensuring high quality health care are top priorities of the Department of Health and Senior Services. All of our licensed health care facilities strive everyday to reduce medical errors and healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) and to ensure that every patient receives the highest standards of care. Educating consumers about the performance of the facilities where they receive care is equally important because it empowers them to make informed decisions.

Learn more from Healthcare Quality Assessment

New Mexico

As progress on the Prevention Plan continues, more facilities are submitting HAI data voluntarily and the NM HAI Program will continue to identify and expand prevention efforts in New Mexico.

New York

This is the fourth annual report to be issued since reporting began in 2007. The initial report was submitted to the Governor, Legislature, hospitals and the public on June 30, 2008 followed by the second and third annual reports submitted on June 30, 2009 and September 1, 2010.

Oregon

Oregon Healthcare Acquired Infections Report

Pennsylvania

Healthcare-Associated Infections 2010 Report

The mission of HAIP is to protect patients, residents, visitors and healthcare personnel as well as promote safety, quality and value in the healthcare delivery system.

Learn more from Pennsylvania Department of Health

South Carolina

Hospital Acquired Infections (HAIs) in South Carolina

Comparison Tables contain the following information for each hospital listed:

Name of hospital
Number of infections
Number of surgical procedures or central line days
The hospital’s statistically “expected” number of SSIs
Hospital’s SIR “observed / expected (predicted) Standardized Infection Ratio (SIR)
95% Confidence Interval for each hospital’s SIR
Interpretation of the hospitals SIR

Not different = Statistically similar (not different) than the standard population
Lower = Statistically lower than the standard population
Higher = Statistically higher than the standard population

Tennessee

In Tennessee, hospitals and long-term acute care facilities are required to reporting certain HAIs to the Tennessee Department of Health through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Healthcare Safety Network. This includes:

Central Line-Associated Blood Stream Infections
Surgical Site Infections
Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus
Clostridium difficile
Dialysis Events
Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infections

Washington

Central-Line-Associated Bloodstream Infection Rate by type of ICU

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Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia Infection Rate

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