COVID-19 pandemic threatens to reverse years of progress made in patient safety, CDC study suggests

With extensive funding and training, federal agencies and health care systems have spent years working together to reduce hospital-acquired infections and increase overall patient safety in the USA.

From 2018 to 2019, there was up to an 18% decrease in central line-associated bloodstream infections, catheter-associated urinary tract infections and certain surgical site infections among acute care hospitals, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A new study from the agency shows the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to undo that progress.

An analysis of the CDC’s National Healthcare Safety Network found four out of the six routinely tracked infections saw major increases in 2020, according to the study published Thursday in the peer-reviewed journal Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology. ...