National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) New Capabilities for Long-term Care

NHSN (http://www.cdc.gov/nhsn/about.html) is a voluntary secure, internet-based surveillance system that integrates and expands legacy patient and healthcare personnel safety surveillance systems managed by the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion (DHQP) at CDC. Since 2008, enrollment in NHSN has been open to all types of healthcare facilities in the United States, including long term care facilities, outpatient dialysis centers, acute care hospitals, long term acute care hospitals, psychiatric hospitals, rehabilitation hospitals, and ambulatory surgery centers.

NHSN has recently launched capabilities for Long-Term Care Facilities. NHSN released a new tracking component allowing nursing homes and other long-term care facilities to monitor healthcare-associated infections. The new NHSN component allows facilities to track Clostridium difficile, drug-resistant infections such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), urinary tract infections, and healthcare worker adherence to basic infection control procedures including hand hygiene and glove and gown use. NHSN’s long-term care facility component is ideal for use by: nursing homes, skilled nursing facilities, chronic care facilities, and assisted living and residential care facilities.

To access or enroll [your facility] in NHSN’s long-term care component, see CDC’s LTC component website: http://www.cdc.gov/nhsn/LTC/index.html.