No data found! This is huge a patient safety issue

Healthcare organizations and governments are afraid of addressing one of the largest safety issues: Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs).

There has been a significant increase in HAIs during the COVID-19 pandemic, which was clearly documented in a recent?research article.

"This report provides a national view of the increases in HAI incidence in 2020. These data highlight the need to return to conventional infection prevention and control practices and build resiliency in these programs to withstand future pandemics," the research article's co-authors wrote, says Arjun Srinivasan, MD, associate director for healthcare-associated infection programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

"The first thing is to be aware of the data. What has been wonderful to see is that hospitals have continued to monitor these infections and to report them to the CDC, even though for the first six months of 2020, they did not have to report them. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services gave hospitals permission to stop reporting because they were under a lot of strain. But 80% to 90% of hospitals kept reporting. So, assessing and monitoring this information and knowing that you have this problem is absolutely the first step toward correcting it," he says.

Dr. Srinivasan is referring to US numbers. We have a huge problem in Europe when it comes to documenting healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). No information is systematically collected - and healthcare organizations and governments are afraid of talking about the infections because they clearly show a problem with the patient and healthcare worker safety. It is a dangerous cocktail.

There is a huge need to collect data systematically on HAIs in Europe and to document what is working - and what is not.

We need data, we need numbers, we need transparency.