The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released the 2018 National and State Healthcare-Associated Infection (HAI) Progress Report, a snapshot of how each state and the country are doing in eliminating HAIs, showing significant progress nationally in reducing several hospital-acquired infections and highlighting that prevention of these infections is possible.

Using data from CDC’s National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN), the 2018 HAI Progress Report shows the following reductions have been achieved nationally among acute care hospitals (2017 – 2018):

• About 9% decrease in central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs)
• About 8% decrease in catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs)
• No significant changes in ventilator-associated events (VAEs)
• No significant changes in surgical site infections (SSIs) related to the 10 procedures tracked in the report
• No significant changes in hospital onset methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bloodstream infections
• About 12% decrease in hospital onset C. difficile infections

While much progress has been made, more needs to be done to prevent healthcare-associated infections in a variety of settings. Ongoing collaboration between public health, healthcare professionals, and other partners is critical to ensuring patient safety.

Additionally, the HAI Progress Report data are available in CDC’s new Antibiotic Resistance & Patient Safety Portal (AR&PSP), an interactive web-based application that was created to innovatively display data collected through CDC’s NHSN and other sources. Use the AR&PSP to view enhanced data visualizations on Antibiotic Resistance, Use, and Stewardship datasets as well as HAI data for the nation and states.