Beyond Traditional Healthcare-Associated Infection Surveillance – the National Healthcare Safety Network's Antimicrobial Use and Resistance Module

Brief Summary
CDC’s National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) is used by 32 states and the District of Columbia as the infrastructure for mandatory reporting of healthcare-associated infection (HAI) data.  Additionally, the vast majority of US hospitals and dialysis centers report data to NHSN as part of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services quality reporting programs.  CDC works closely with the Health Level 7 (HL7) data standards organization to develop and maintain technical specifications for electronic reporting of HAI, AU, and AR data using the HL7 Clinical Document Architecture (CDA) file format.  Implementers use the CDA specifications to configure electronic health record (EHR) and infection control surveillance systems to produce reports that can be submitted electronically to NHSN, obviating the need for manual data entry into NHSN’s web interface.  HAI, AU, and AR data are immediately accessible to state health departments for use in surveillance and quality improvement activities in their jurisdictions.  As of January 2014, over 1,100 hospitals have used EHRs or infection control surveillance systems to create and import HAI data to NHSN using the CDA file format.  Over 50 hospitals have reported AU data to NHSN, and initial data analyses show significant variation between hospitals in their overall use of antimicrobials and their use of specific agents.  The AU data reported to NHSN are designed for use by antimicrobial stewardship at the facility level and across multiple facilities, such as by state or local health departments.  Similarly, the AR reporting option in NHSN is designed to yield benefits for analysis and action at multiple levels when it is launched in July 2014.  In this roundtable, NHSN staff will discuss the interactions between CDC, HL7, and software vendors that are critical in implementing electronic reporting to NHSN and describe NHSN’s in data sharing and analysis features that allow state health departments to view and analyze AU and AR data.