CDC's National Healthcare Safety Network Annual Report Now Available Online

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)s 2011 NHSN Annual Report is now available online. This report, published in the American Journal of Infection Control (AJIC), provides a summary of data collected by hospitals participating in the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) from January through December 2011 and reported to CDC by August 1, 2012.
 
Healthcare facilities using NHSN have real-time access to their data for local improvement efforts. The data presented in this report can be used to prioritize prevention efforts in those patient-care areas that are shown to have the highest incidence of device-associated infections and/or high medical device utilization. Facilities may also wish to set targets based on the percentile distributions provided in this report in an effort to strive for lower rates and greater prevention success. The NHSN Annual Report provides the source data for the 2011 National and State Healthcare-associated Infections Standardized Infection Ratio Report.
 
CDCs NHSN is the nations most widely used healthcare-associated infection tracking system. NHSN provides facilities, states, regions, and the nation with data needed to identify problem areas, measure progress of prevention efforts, and ultimately eliminate healthcare-associated infections.

To read the entire NHSN Annual Report visit: http://www.cdc.gov/nhsn/PDFs/dataStat/NHSN-Report-2011-Data-Summary.pdf