Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAI)

What are Healthcare-Associated Infections?

HAIs represent one of the most significant patient safety challenges in US healthcare: 1 in 31 hospital patients has at least one HAI on any given day, with approximately 687,000 HAIs occurring annually in acute care hospitals and causing 72,000 deaths. The CDC's National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) is the primary national HAI surveillance platform — hospitals report infection data to NHSN, and CMS pulls this data to calculate the HAC Reduction Program score. The five HAIs measured under the CMS HAC Reduction Program Domain 2 are: CLABSI (SIR), CAUTI (SIR), SSI for colon and abdominal hysterectomy procedures (SIR), MRSA bacteremia (LabID SIR), and C. difficile (LabID SIR). SIR interpretation is critical: an SIR of 1.0 equals the national baseline, above 1.0 is worse than expected, and below 1.0 is better than expected. Hospitals scoring in the bottom quartile of the composite HAC score face a 1% reduction applied to all Medicare DRG payments for the fiscal year — a penalty that can amount to millions for large systems.

Why It Matters for Healthcare Analytics

HAIs impose a $28.4 billion annual economic burden on US healthcare, with costs distributed across extended stays, additional treatments, and malpractice exposure. Tracking individual SIRs across all five NHSN measures — and understanding the composite HAC score methodology — is essential for prioritizing which infection type to address first. A hospital close to the bottom-quartile threshold needs to know which measure is most movable in the shortest timeframe.

How Vizier Tracks HAIs

Upload your NHSN infection surveillance data, then ask "Where do we stand on the HAC Reduction Program penalty threshold?" — Vizier calculates all five Domain 2 SIRs, models your composite HAC score, and identifies which specific HAI measure carries the highest risk of pushing you into the penalty zone.