How many hospital acquired infections are there

HAIs occur in all settings of care, including hospitals, surgical centers, ambulatory clinics, and long-term care facilities such as nursing homes and rehabilitation facilities. All hospitalized patients are susceptible to contracting a nosocomial infection. Some patients are at greater risk than others-young children, the elderly, and persons with compromised immune systems are more likely to get an infection. Other risk factors are long hospital stays, the use of indwelling catheters, failure of healthcare workers to wash their hands, and overuse of antibiotics.

Of these infections:. Patients who acquire infections from surgery spend, on average, an additional 6. Moreover, surgical patients who develop infections are 60 percent more likely to require admission to a hospital's intensive care unit. Building upon this success and continuing towards the elimination of HAIs is critical.

In , the U. CDC plays an important role in this plan by producing data that prompt action, leading the country in tracking, preventing and ultimately eliminating HAIs. These data also help pinpoint areas of further improvement that allow for the continued progress. This provided an opportunity to assess prevention progress while strategizing about the best way to move forward as a country.

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HAI Data. However, one trend is clear: the infections are becoming more complicated to treat as their resistance to antibiotics grows. How pervasive is antibiotic resistance among HAIs?

Infections acquired in hospitals are becoming more virulent and more resistant to the antibiotics typically used to fight them. One of the deadliest types of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, commonly referred to as MRSA.

The percentage of Staph infections that are resistant to antibiotics has risen from 22 percent in to over 60 percent in Prevalence of other multidrug-resistant bacteria, or "superbugs", is also increasing, including that of vancomycin-resistant enterococci VRE which, in , was found in approximately 15 percent of hospital patients up from less than 1 percent in Clostridium difficile C. How can MRSA infections be prevented?