Oregon hospitals fall short in meeting national standards for preventing some health care-associated infection measures

OHA continues support for hospitals in improving infection control, but visitors to health care facilities can also help 

PORTLAND, Ore.—Oregon hospitals made gains in lowering the number of health care-associated infections (HAIs) among hospitalized patients and meeting some federal infection reduction goals during 2024, according to newly published Oregon Health Authority (OHA) data.

But hospitals around the state fell short of meeting national standards—and when compared with hospitals nationwide—for reducing deadly surgical site infections, catheter-associated urinary tract infections, central line-associated bloodstream infections and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bloodstream infections.  

The Healthcare-Associated Infections Program at OHA’s Public Health Division annually publishes the hospital HAI data for 61 individual hospitals in Oregon. The HAI Program’s interactive data dashboard provides statewide summaries and facility-specific data of Oregon hospital performance on nine HAI metrics, with comparable national benchmarks. 

OHA works to prevent infections because of the significant risk to patient safety. On a given day, one in every 31 patients in U.S. hospitals will get an infection in a hospital or health care setting. In 2024, Oregon hospitals reported 957 such injuries. 

“No health care provider wants to see a hospital-associated infection in one of their patients,” said Dat Tran, M.D., MS, HAI Program medical director. “These data are intended to help hospitals and health care providers understand where they’re doing well and where they may need to step up their infection control efforts to prevent HAIs and keep patients safe.” 

HAI Program staff use four methods to assess progress Oregon and individual health care facilities are making in reducing HAIs: 

• Comparison to 2015 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention HAI data used as a baseline to calculate a predicted number of HAIs.
• Comparison to national reduction goals set by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to achieve 50% reduction in central line-associated bloodstream infections and hospital-onset MRSA bloodstream infections; 30% reduction in hospital-onset Clostridium difficile infections and surgical site infections; and 25% reduction in catheter-associated urinary tract infections.
• Comparison to 2023 statewide data to calculate a percent change for 2024.
• Comparison between 2024 statewide data and 2024 data reported by hospitals nationwide. 

Among the HAI Program’s observations in this year’s data: 

• With the exception of hysterectomy procedures, Oregon hospitals performed worse than the 2015 baseline for the four other reportable surgical site infections, including those resulting from colon procedures, coronary artery bypass grafts, hip prosthesis and knee prosthesis. Oregon hospitals saw more surgical site infections in 2024 compared with 2023. 
• In 2024, Oregon hospitals performed better than the 2015 baseline for catheter-associated urinary tract infections, Clostridioides difficile infections, and surgical site infections following hysterectomy procedures.
• While Oregon acute care hospitals performed better than the 2015 baseline in 2024 for central line-associated bloodstream infections and MRSA bloodstream infections, Oregon critical access hospitals performed worse than the 2015 baseline for both infections.
• Compared with hospitals nationwide, Oregon hospitals performed similarly in 2024 for most measures but performed worse for catheter-associated urinary tract infections, Clostridioides difficile infections and MRSA bloodstream infections in critical access hospitals.
• Oregon hospitals met the HHS target in 2024 for Clostridioides difficile infections in both acute care and critical access hospitals. No other HAI metric met the HHS target in 2024.
• Similar to 2023, catheter-associated urinary tract infections and MRSA bloodstream infections in critical access hospitals continue to perform worse than the 2015 baseline and should be targeted for prevention. 

New to the data dashboard is an “Antibiotic Stewardship” tab, which provides state- and facility-level information on use of seven core elements of antimicrobial stewardship. HAI Program staff found that 100% of Oregon hospitals met all seven core elements of stewardship in 2024.  

To support Oregon facilities in improving their performance on these HAI metrics, OHA continues to: 

• Conduct studies to assess and understand statewide and regional trends.
• Provide one-on-one infection control technical assistance to health care facilities statewide.
• Collaborating with CDC to offer direct-to-provider infection control education to ensure all health care staff have the tools to prevent health care-associated infections. 

There also are infection prevention strategies that families, friends and the public visiting these settings can follow. Visitors to health care settings should frequently wash their hands, look for worsening signs and symptoms of infection, and notify providers of these signs and symptoms. Visitors should follow facility infection prevention policies and procedures. Most importantly, visitors should avoid visiting a facility if they are sick. 

Click here to learn more about OHA’s HAI Program, the impacts of infection and prevention steps. 

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