The Alabama Department of Public Health highlighted a study on Tuesday that found downturns in hospital infection rates across the state.
The report, released Monday, is conducted annually by Alabama’s Healthcare-associated Infections program and measures state and hospital-specific patient infection rates.
“We publish an annual report that provides information on the number of infections per category and whether the hospital performs better than the national average, similar to it, or worse than,” said State Health Officer Dr. Scott Harris.
The study found that Alabama hospitals in 2024 outperformed national baseline infection levels from 2015 in three out of four of the study’s infection-related categories.
The state’s rates of catheter-associated urinary tract infections, central line-associated bloodstream infections and infections from colon surgeries were found to be lower in Alabama than the national baseline. Meanwhile, the state’s rate of infections stemming from abdominal hysterectomies was similar to the national rate.
“All infection measures, except for colon SSIs, decreased, highlighting improvements in patient care practices from 2023 to 2024,” the report reads.
Infections of all types, besides those associated with colon surgeries, have exhibited consistent downward trends, following spikes in hospital infection rates in 2020 and 2021.
Alabama Hospital Association President Danne Howard expressed approval of the study’s results and gratitude for the work of Alabama hospital employees.
“Providing quality care and patient safety remain at the heart of everything Alabama’s hospitals do,” said Howard.
“These results reflect the dedication of frontline caregivers and hospital leaders, as well as the ongoing work of the Association’s quality and infection prevention efforts that provide education, hands-on training through infection prevention bootcamps, sharing of best practices, and direct support to hospitals across the state. By working together and continually investing in improvement, our hospitals are advancing safer quality care for the patients and communities they serve,” she added.
Of the Alabama hospitals studied, fourteen performed better than predicted by ADPH, and none fell below the national baseline.
Harris highlighted the importance of the work done by ADPH and Alabama hospital employees in ensuring hospital data is reported accurately and improving the quality-of-care facilities provide.
“In addition to the report, our staff members work with hospitals to improve the accuracy of the reporting, education that not only helps with public reporting, but more importantly helps hospitals collect data that is valuable in their efforts to improve care.”
The report emphasized that “although significant progress has been made in preventing HAIs,” on any given day, one in 31 hospital patients suffers from an infection.
“The high number of HAIs imposes a significant, and unnecessary, burden on the population in terms of morbidity and mortality,” the study reads. “Recent studies suggest that implementing existing prevention practices can reduce certain HAIs by as much as 70 percent. The financial benefit of using these prevention practices is estimated to be $25 billion to $31.5 billion in medical cost savings.”
The annual Healthcare-associated Infections program report was established in Alabama by the Mike Denton Infection Reporting Act, passed in 2009.
Since the first issue of the report in 2011, instances of catheter-associated urinary tract infections have nearly halved, while the rates of all other infections studied by the report show slight increases from 14 years ago.
