CDC Infection Tracking System Available to Hospitals
All health care facilities in the United States now can tap into a secure, Web-based reporting network to track infections associated with health care.
All health care facilities in the United States now can tap into a secure, Web-based reporting network to track infections associated with health care.
The National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) deveeloped by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), provides multiple options for data analysis and more flexibility for sharing information both within and outside a facility, including the general public, if the facility so chooses.
The system builds upon CDC's National Nosocomial Infection Surveillance (NNIS) system which, was the gold standard system for tracking health care-associated infections for more than 30 years. CDC developed the NNIS system to help infection-control professionals and hospitals stay abreast of the rapidly expanding science and practice of infection prevention and control, and better manage episodes of health care-associated infections. The NNIS system had about 300 participating facilities nationwide.
To date, more than 600 participants in 45 states use NHSN, and the CDC already is partnering with dozens of health care facilities, including U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals, to use NHSN in tracking the prevention of a common infection caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Opening the NHSN to all facilities nationwide will allow even more hospitals to focus on preventing this potentially deadly infection, as well as others.
For more information, go to www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dhqp/nhsn.html.
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