What are HAIs?
A healthcare-associated infection (HAI) is an infection that develops during, or soon after, receiving healthcare services or being in a healthcare setting. This could be in a hospital, clinic, doctor's office, surgery center, nursing home, or homecare visit by a health professional.
These infections are a serious problem, but many are preventable. On any given day, about 1 out of every 31 hospital patients has at least one healthcare-associated infection.
What do we do?
The HAI Program in the OHA Division of Public Health oversees the prevention, surveillance, and reporting of HAIs and antimicrobial resistance (AR) in Oregon healthcare facilities.
-
Share hospital infections data: We collect data and tell people about infections in Oregon hospitals. This helps you know which hospitals are doing well in preventing infections.
-
Help healthcare facilities: If a hospital or care place has many infections, we help them figure out how to stop more infections.
-
Watch for new germs: When we find them, we work to stop them from spreading.
-
Investigate cluster illnesses: If many people get sick in a healthcare place, we help people figure out what's going on to stop more people from getting sick.
-
Teach about preventing infections: We teach people how to keep from getting infections, and we teach medical professionals how to use medicines the right way, so they can keep working for a long time.