U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion

Reduce C. diff infections that people get in the hospital — HAI‑01 Data Methodology and Measurement

On this page:  About the National Data  |  Methodology

About the National Data

Data

Data Source:  National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN), CDC/NCEZID

Baseline: 1.00 was the national Standardized Infection Ratio (SIR) for hospital-onset CDI in 2015

Target: 0.70 SIR

Numerator
Observed number of hospital-onset Clostridioides difficile infections.
Denominator
Predicted number of hospital-onset Clostridioides difficile infections.
Target-setting method
Maintain consistency with national programs, regulations, policies, or laws
Target-setting method justification
The target was selected to align with the National Action Plan to Prevent Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAI): Road Map to Elimination. This plan used a consensus driven process across federal HAI subject matter experts to identify a target.

Methodology

Methodology notes

SIR is risk adjusted for facility bed size, inpatient community-onset prevalence rate, and medical school affiliation. The SIR compares the actual number of HAIs at each hospital, the predicted number of infections; anything above a 1.0 SIR would indicate more infections than expected while anything less than 1.0 SIR would be considered less infections than expected.

Data collected by CDC is also used by the CMS as part of their hospital quality improvement program. Hence, the data collected for this Healthy People 2030 objective are consistent with national hospital quality policies set forth by CMS. Likewise, these data are also used to monitor progress in CDI prevention for the HHS National Healthcare Associated Infection Action Plan.