The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been a national leader for monitoring and prevention of health care-associated infections (HAIs) in the United States since 1970. Several states currently mandate reporting of HAIs, and other states are considering legislation. As part of the effort to reduce HAIs, CDC's newly expanded surveillance system, the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN), can be used by states to meet their mandatory reporting requirements. 

The National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN), is an innovative tool for patient safety monitoring. Dr. Julie Gerberding states, "NHSN allows any facility in our country to track health care-associated infection rates and the compliance with proven techniques health care professionals can take to prevent those infections." Specifically, the NHSN provides trend data for prevention and control efforts within health care facilities, and:

• is built to improve safety for patients and health care workers
• meets national expert recommendations from the CDC and HICPAC (see below) 
• offers facilities the ability to compare and share data
• provides feedback on performance data to health care workers
• translates data into actionable information and knowledge for health care facilities

Click here for more information on the new NHSN system.

The CDC provides technical assistance to states that want to use NHSN as a reporting tool. For assistance, contact Kathleen Stewart at 1-800-893-0485, Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, National Center for Infectious Diseases.

National guidelines exist for creating state reporting systems for HAIs. Guided by the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC), which is composed of national experts, the CDC developed and published consensus recommendations. These guidelines assist those designing and implementing public reporting systems and include recommendations for states on how to:

• use up-to-date public health surveillance methods when designing and implementing state reporting systems;
• create advisory panels, including persons from multiple disciplines with expertise in the prevention and control of HAIs, to monitor the planning and oversight of state reporting systems;
• choose most appropriate performance (process and outcome) measures, based on facility type, and implement measures gradually to allow time for facilities to adapt and to permit ongoing evaluation of data validity; and
• provide regular and confidential feedback of performance data to health care providers.

Click here for more information about the HICPAC recommended guidelines and to view the CDC Guidance Document (.pdf).