Recent survey data suggests that acute-care hospital patients in the United States were 22 percent less likely to acquire a healthcare-associated infection in 2015 than in 2011, according to an article on the Healio website.

“The results suggest that national efforts to prevent healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) are succeeding,” Shelley Magill, MD, PhD, of the CDC’s pision of Healthcare Quality Promotion.

Magill and colleagues conducted surveys in 148 acute-care hospitals in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Tennessee to assess the prevalence of specific HAIs. 

All 148 hospitals that participated in both the 2011 and 2015 surveys selected one date each year between May 1 and Sept. 30 to conduct the survey on a random sample of patients. The researchers compared patients surveyed in 2011 with those surveyed in 2015.

Magill said the overall reduction in HAIs was largely due to reductions in surgical site infections (SSIs).

The prevalence of other major HAI types such as Clostridium difficile remained unchanged. C. difficile infection (CDI) was reported in 0.56% of patients in 2011 and 0.59% in 2015.

Read the article.