The CDC has published prevalence survey results in the New England Journal of Medicine that find that healthcare-associated infection (HAI) prevalence in U.S. hospitals was lower in 2023 than in 2015.
Similar surveys of U.S. hospitals showed that one of 25 patients had an HAI in 2011, which lowered to one of 31 patients in 2015. The newest survey found that in 2023, the metric had dropped further, to one in 38 patients.
Although these numbers are trending in an encouraging way, CDC researchers maintain that “the burden of [HAIs] in U.S. hospitals continued to be high,” while noting that a majority of the identified HAIs “were not associated with a device or procedure.”
Access the full study, which was funded by the Emerging Infections Program cooperative agreement from the CDC, here.
