Patient Safety Analysis Quick Reference Guides

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

These quick reference guides were created to help you understand, modify, and interpret your data using the NHSN application’s various analysis output (report) options for the NHSN Patient Safety Component. These guides serve as companions to the “Introduction to NHSN Analysis” training slide set.

National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN)Patient Safety Analysis Resource

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

The NHSN application provides various options that allow NHSN users to analyze their surveillance data. The resources listed on the link above are intended to help you use the analysis tool, and interpret data analyzed from the Patient Safety Component of NHSN.

2021 NHSN Training videos

Centers for Disease Control (CDC), National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN)

NHSN subject matter experts have created training videos for 2021 NHSN updates. Recorded presentations cover the following topics:

  • LabID Analysis in Acute Care Hospitals – FAQs and Troubleshooting
  • MRSA Bacteremia and CDI LabID Event Reporting – Refresher
  • Clarifications to 2021 Bloodstream Infection Definitions
  • 2021 Secondary BSI and Chapter 17 Updates
  • Catheter-associated Urinary Tract Infection (CAUTI) – Update
  • Ventilator-associated Event (VAE) and Pediatric Ventilator-associated Event (PedVAE) Analysis
  • Surgical Site Infection (SSI) – Updates and Refresher
  • Optimizing the Group User Analysis Experience
  • NHSN Antimicrobial Resistance (AR) Option: Facility-Wide Antibiogram Report
  • Internal Data Validation
  • Healthcare Personnel Vaccination Module: Influenza Vaccination Summary Reporting for IRF Units in LTACHs and IPFs

2023 National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN); Patient Safety Component Manual

CDC, National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN)

The Patient Safety Component includes five modules that focus on events associated with medical devices, surgical procedures, antimicrobial agents used during healthcare, multidrug resistant organisms, and Coronavirus Infectious Disease 2019 (COVID-19).

National Action Plan to Prevent Health Care-Associated Infections: Road Map to Elimination

Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP)

In recognition of health care-associated infections (HAIs) as an important public health and patient safety issue, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) convened the Federal Steering Committee for the Prevention of Health Care-Associated Infections (originally called the HHS Steering Committee, but was changed to reflect the addition of agencies outside of HHS). The Steering Committee’s charge is to coordinate and maximize the efficiency of prevention efforts across the federal government. Members of the Steering Committee include clinicians, scientists, and public health leaders representing:

Toolkit To Improve Safety for Mechanically Ventilated Patients

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)

The Toolkit To Improve Safety for Mechanically Ventilated Patients helps hospitals make care safer for mechanically ventilated patients in intensive care units (ICUs).  ICU staff can use the toolkit to apply the proven principles and methods of AHRQ’s Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program (CUSP) to reduce complications for patients on ventilators. Such complications include ventilator-associated pneumonia, which affects as many as 20 percent of patients who are on a ventilator for more than 48 hours. The toolkit includes resources used by hospitals that participated in the AHRQ Safety Program for Mechanically Ventilated Patients project.

CUSP Guide for Reducing Ventilator Associated Events in Mechanically Ventilated Patients

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)

You can redesign your care system through technical and adaptive work to improve patient safety and eliminate preventable harm. Technical work focuses on procedural aspects of care that can be explicitly defined, such as the evidence to support a specific intervention or the definition for a ventilator-associated event (VAE). Adaptive work targets the attitudes, values, beliefs, and behaviors of the people who deliver care. The five-step CUSP process brings adaptive work into the change process and helps your team improve your unit’s safety culture. By integrating CUSP with technical interventions, your team can achieve real and sustainable improvements in safety.