National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN)

How to Enroll Your Facility in NHSN

Enrollment is open and available for hospitals and outpatient hemodialysis centers only. If your healthcare facility is one of the following: long—term acute care hospital, surgical hospital, nursing home, extended care facility, ambulatory surgical center, or home care, enrollment is currently unavailable. Please check back in June.

Enrolling in NHSN is a multiple step process, outlined below, that is completed by the person designated to serve as the Facility Administrator. The steps must be followed in the order listed to ensure a successful enrollment.

Before attempting to enroll, as the Facility Administrator you must:

1. Review the following documents:

• Purposes, Eligibility, Requirements and Confidentiality
  April 2006 (46 KB / 2 pages)
• NHSN Facility Administrator Enrollment Guide
  March 2008 (1.23 MB / 29 pages)

2. Review the "NHSN Manual: Patient Safety Protocol" and the required training sessions and slide sets:

• NHSN Manual: Patient Safety Protocol
  January 2008 (1.21 MB / 98 pages)
• Training Requirements for Facility Administrators

When you have completed the required trainings and read the above documents, you are ready to enroll. Follow the steps below to complete the enrollment process.

NOTE: Please make sure that your email system will not block emails from nhsn@cdc.gov and PHINTech@cdc.gov before beginning enrollment.

3. Read the NHSN Rules of Behavior & register your facility in the NHSN.

Ready to Register? Click here.

4.  Obtain your Digital ID Certificate from the Secure Data Network (SDN)

After you register your facility, NHSN will send you an email containing the website and password to apply for a digital certificate.

5.  Complete Enroll Forms

To complete the enrollment forms online, access SDN (https://sdn.cdc.gov) and select “NHSN Enrollment.” Then print and complete the following forms:

• For a Hospital:
• Facility Contact Information 66 KB / 2 pages
• Patient Safety Component Hospital Survey Form 72 KB / 2 pages
• For an Outpatient Hemodialysis Center:
• Facility Contact Information 66 KB / 2 pages
• Patient Safety Component Outpatient Dialysis Practices Survey 72 KB / 2 pages

Note: You must complete enrollment in one session; you cannot save incomplete data.

6. Send Consent form to CDC

NHSN will send you the Agreement to Participate and Consent form in an email.

7. Begin using the NHSN Reporting application

Enrollment Support

• Frequently Asked Questions: NHSN Enrollment
• NHSN System Requirements
• Contact NHSN

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