Making Healthcare Safer for All Californians

Healthcare-Associated Infections in California Hospitals Annual Report, 2019

Each year, CDPH reports on California hospitals’ incremental progress towards achieving HAI prevention goals. California hospitals’ 2019 HAI incidence was significantly lower than national baselines for all reportable infection types. California’s 2020 goal for CDI prevention was achieved in 2019, and nearly 30 percent of hospitals were on track to achieve 2020 reduction targets for at least three infection types. Over the past seven years, the CDPH HAI Program identified hospitals with high infection incidence and targeted them for outreach and intervention.  The results of such interventions have demonstrated success, including among 95% of 20 hospitals targeted for CLABSI reduction and 100% of 44 hospitals targeted for SSI following specific procedure types.

The year 2019 marks the end of the pre-COVID-19 pandemic era, however. All California hospital prevention goals were on a 5-year trajectory to assess if targets were met in 2020, which will likely not be possible. Competing pressure on hospital infection prevention programs in their detection and management of COVID-19 during 2020 may result in underreporting of HAI and will make it difficult to assess continued progress toward 2020 HAI reduction targets. Moreover, shortages of personal protective equipment resulting in their reuse could potentially impact the spread of antimicrobial resistance (AR), C. difficile infection, and other HAI incidence. The potential overuse of antimicrobials for secondary bacterial infections in patients hospitalized with COVID-19 could also promote emergence of AR among hospital pathogens.  

In past years, HAI program has conducted HAI and AR prevention outreach to hospitals based on their prior year’s incidence; this year our HAI staff expertise in the detection, control, and prevention of infections in healthcare facilities have focused on COVID-19. As described in this report, CDPH HAI epidemiologists are conducting analyses on the effects of COVID-19 on HAI and AR prevention progress. CDPH is seeking advice from the HAI Advisory Committee about re-establishing short and long-term goals for HAI and AR prevention in California hospitals. Although much uncertainty exists on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on HAI and AR incidence, one thing is clear: adherence to all infection prevention practices is more important than ever to ensure safe patient care.  

Annual HAI Report

Healthcare-Associated Infections Annual Report , 2019(PDF)

If you are having difficulty accessing the documents please contact CDPH at HAIProgram@cdph.ca.gov to request the information in an alternate format.​​ The 2018 data tables are available on the California Health and Human Services Open Data Portal (Select Diseases and Conditions).