What Progress in Reducing Hospital Infections Looks Like

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released its most recent annual progress report on healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) late last month, and it’s clear that any “progress” is in the eye of the beholder.

The report tracks six types of infections acquired by patients reported to the CDC by general acute-care hospitals, critical access hospitals, inpatient rehabilitation facilities and long-term acute care hospitals. The six types of infections are:

Central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI)
Catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI)
Ventilator-associated events (VAE)
Hospital-onset methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)
Hospital-onset Clostridioides difficile (CDI)
Surgical site infections (SSI)

The CDC then calculates the ratio between observed and expected cases of each type of infection and compares the six ratios with the ratios from the previous year to determine how much progress the four types of settings are making in reducing HAIs.

Well, I, like all patients, live in the observed world, not the expected world. Here’s what progress looks like where I live. The total number of infections of all six types reported by general acute-care hospitals dropped 7.3% to 123,204 in 2024 from 132,913 in 2023. That’s progress if you’re one of the 9,709 fewer people who didn’t contract an infection in the hospital in 2024. That’s not progress if you’re one of the 123,204 people who did.

Here’s what that progress looks like by HAI by reporting hospital by year. This is my math:

average number of HAIs by type by hospital chart

The average number of HAIs reported per hospital dipped for five of the six types of infections. It went up for surgical site infections.

If you want to do your own math, here’s a link to the CDC’s 2023 HAI progress report. Here’s my blog post about the 2023 numbers: When Nearly 125,000 Hospital Infections Is Good News

I look forward to the day when I can write about what real progress in reducing hospital infections looks like. That will make a great chart.

Let’s build better healthcare.

Thanks for reading.

About the Author

David Burda

David Burda began covering healthcare in 1983 and hasn’t stopped since. Dave writes this monthly column “Burda on Healthcare,” contributes weekly blog posts, manages our weekly newsletter 4sight Friday, and hosts our weekly Roundup podcast. Dave believes that healthcare is a business like any other business, and customers — patients — are king. If you do what’s right for patients, good business results will follow.

Dave’s personal experiences with the healthcare system both as a patient and family caregiver have shaped his point of view. It’s also been shaped by covering the industry for 40 years as a reporter and editor. He worked at Modern Healthcare for 25 years, the last 11 as editor.

Prior to Modern Healthcare, he did stints at the American Medical Record Association (now AHIMA) and the American Hospital Association. After Modern Healthcare, he wrote a monthly column for Twin Cities Business explaining healthcare trends to a business audience, and he developed and executed content marketing plans for leading healthcare corporations as the editorial director for healthcare strategies at MSP Communications.

When he’s not reading and writing about healthcare, Dave spends his time riding the trails of DuPage County, IL, on his bike, tending his vegetable garden and daydreaming about being a lobster fisherman in Maine. He lives in Wheaton, IL, with his lovely wife of 40 years and his three children, none of whom want to be journalists or lobster fishermen.

February 11, 2026

What Progress in Reducing Hospital Infections Looks Like

About the Author

David Burda

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