Key points
- HAIs are infections that patients get while or soon after receiving health care.
- Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) are a serious threat to healthcare safety.
- Preventing HAIs is a top priority for CDC and its partners in public health and health care.
Overview
While we have made progress, patients, providers and public health workers can do more to keep health care safe and prevent HAIs.
Impacts
HAIs cause sickness, death and add billions of dollars to healthcare costs each year.
One in 31
On any given day, about one in 31 hospital patients has at least one HAI.1
Risks
Healthcare procedures can expose you to germs that cause HAIs. These germs can spread between patients, providers, staff and visitors through unclean hands or improper use or reuse of equipment.
Recommendations
- Read Tips for Being a Safe Patient.
- For healthcare professionals: explore CDC's infection control guidelines and recommendations.
What the research shows
CDC publishes data reports to help track national progress and identify focus areas.
Keep Reading:
Healthcare-associated Infections: Reports and Data
What CDC is doing
CDC's Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion
Learn more about CDC's Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion (DHQP).
- Publishing infection prevention guidelines for healthcare safety.
- Publishing HAI data for action through the Antimicrobial Resistance & Patient Safety Portal.
- Advancing the HHS Action Plan to Prevent Healthcare-Associated Infections.
- Educating patients and providers on healthcare threats like sepsis and safety practices for medication, long-term care facilities, blood transfusions, organ transplants, dialysis and more.
- Educating health care through Project Firstline.
- Collecting data through the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) to identify and track HAIs.
- Researching emerging HAI threats.
- Working closely with health departments to prevent HAIs.
- Assisting health departments and healthcare facilities with HAI outbreaks.