Public gets early snapshot of MRSA and C. difficile infections in individual hospitals

Categories: Healthcare-associated infections

December 13th, 2013 12:55 pm ET - CDC's Safe Healthcare Blog

MRSA and C. difficile

New data posted yesterday and gathered through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC)National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) gives patients a first look at how their local hospitals are doing at preventing Clostridium difficile infections (deadly diarrhea) and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus(MRSA) bloodstream infections. This information, as well as other hospital performance measures, is collected as part of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting (IQR) Program and is publicly available on the Hospital Compare

website.

The numbers represent only the first quarter of 2013; measurements of how hospitals are doing will be more precise and provide a more complete picture as more information is collected over time. The next update, which will represent six months of data, is scheduled for April 2014.

“Sunlight is a great disinfectant, and public reporting of hospital infections is the sunlight the public has asked for and deserves when it comes to their health and safety,” said CDC Director Tom Frieden, M.D., M.P.H. “Hospitals understand the importance of reporting, and their leaders are using this information to prevent infections and keep their patients safer.”

For more information about this important CDC and CMS collaboration to advance public reporting of hospital quality indicators, read the full press release at:http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2013/p1212-mrsa-cdifficile.html