National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN)

What is NHSN?

The National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) is a secure, internet-based surveillance system that integrates patient and healthcare personnel safety surveillance systems managed by the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion (DHQP) at CDC.
The purposes of NHSN are to:

• Collect data from a sample of healthcare facilities in the United States to permit valid estimation of the magnitude of adverse events among patients and healthcare personnel.
• Collect data from a sample of healthcare facilities in the United States to permit valid estimation of the adherence to practices known to be associated with prevention of healthcare-associated infections (HAI).
• Analyze and report collected data to permit recognition of trends.
• Provide facilities with risk-adjusted data that can be used for interfacility comparisons and local quality improvement activities.
• Assist facilities in developing surveillance and analysis methods that permit timely recognition of patient and healthcare personnel safety problems and prompt intervention with appropriate measures.
• Conduct collaborative research studies with NHSN member facilities (e.g., describe the epidemiology of emerging HAI and pathogens, assess the importance of potential risk factors, further characterize HAI pathogens and their mechanisms of resistance, and evaluate alternative surveillance and prevention strategies).

One of the enhanced features of this surveillance system is that while maintaining data security, integrity, and confidentiality, NHSN has the capacity for healthcare facilities to share data in a timely manner:

• Between a facility and public health agencies
• Between facilities (e.g., multihospital system)

CDC initially opened NHSN enrollment to a limited number of facilities in 2005, followed by a national open enrollment for hospitals and outpatient hemodialysis centers in 2007. NHSN enables healthcare facilities to participate in a voluntary national surveillance system and to make use of recent advances in information technology. NHSN's information technology architecture enables data exchanges in accordance with the standards adopted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in the National Health Information Technology Initiative. The Patient Safety Component of NHSN allows entry of event and denominator data for both device-associated and procedure-associated events as well as data entry for microbiology susceptibility and antimicrobial use. The data analysis features of NHSN range from rate tables and graphs to statistical analysis that compares the healthcare facility’s rates with national performance measures.

NHSN will soon allow for the collection of healthcare worker influenza vaccination data through the Healthcare Personnel Safety Component. Additionally, modules will be available in the future through the Patient Safety Component that will focus on multidrug resistant organisms, central line insertion practices, and high-risk patient influenza vaccination.

There is no charge for participation in the NHSN.

Ready to Enroll? Click here.

Related Documents:

• NHSN Report, 2006 AJIC (465KB, 12 pages)
• Outline for HAI Surveillance (90KB / 8 pages)
• Purposes, Eligibility, Requirements, and Confidentiality (71KB / 2 pages)
• Frequently Asked Questions: Mandatory Reporting (43KB / 3 pages)
• Frequently Asked Questions: NHSN Security
• NHSN System Requirements

Please note: Some of these publications are available for download only as *.pdf files. These files require Adobe Acrobat Reader in order to be viewed. Please review the information on downloading and using Acrobat Reader software.

Infection Control Topics

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