Facility name reporting to the CDC NHSN, regarding CLABSI, in a calendar year. Note that for consolidated facilities reporting together to the NHSN, up to three facility names may be present (see fields Facility_Name1 and Facility_Name2).

Facility ID. The nine-digit primary key from the table used to track facility information for all facilities stored in the Electronic Licensing Management System (ELMS) for CDPH Center of Healthcare Quality, Licensing and Certification Program. Note that for consolidated facilities reporting together to NHSN, up to three facility IDs may be present (see fields FACID2 and FACID3). FACID fields can be used to link to the Healthcare Facility Locations data table to get locations of the facilities.

Facility ID. The nine-digit primary key from the table used to track facility information for all facilities stored in the ELMS for CDPH Center of Healthcare Quality, Licensing and Certification Program. Note that for consolidated facilities reporting together to NHSN, up to three facility IDs may be present (see fields FACID1 and FACID3). FACID fields can be used to link to the Healthcare Facility Locations data table to get locations of the facilities.

Facility ID. The nine-digit primary key from the table used to track facility information for all facilities stored in the ELMS for CDPH Center of Healthcare Quality, Licensing and Certification Program. Note that for consolidated facilities reporting together to NHSN, up to three facility IDs may be present (see fields FACID1 and FACID2). FACID fields can be used to link to the Healthcare Facility Locations data table to get locations of the facilities.

The name of the California county (or counties of consolidated facilities) where the facility is located, derived from COUNTY_CODE in the FACILITY table in ELMS, obtained from the facility's license application form.

Number of reported CLABSIs

Number of predicted CLABSIs based on the national baseline data during 2006-2008.

A daily count of the number of patients with central lines in the patient care location during the reporting year. To calculate central line days, for each day of the month, at the same time each day, the number of patients who have the central lines are recorded. At the end of the month, the daily counts are summed and entered into NHSN for central lines. When denominator data are available from electronic databases, these sources may be used as long as the counts are not substantially different (+/- 5%) from manually-collected counts, pre-validated for a minimum of 3 months. See NHSN website: http://www.cdc.gov/nhsn

The standardized infection ratio (SIR) is a summary measure used to track HAIs at a national, state, or local level over time. In CLABSI data analysis, the SIR compares the actual number of CLABSIs reported with the baseline U.S. experience (i.e., NHSN aggregate data are used as the standard population), the predicted number of CLABSIs. For CLABSI, the SIR is adjusted for the variety in patient care locations. Adjusting for this factor provides for a more fair comparison of hospitals’ infections to the predicted. The method of calculating an SIR is similar to the method used to calculate the Standardized Mortality Ratio (SMR), a summary statistic widely used in public health to analyze mortality data. For more precise comparisons, NHSN provides an SIR only when at least one infection is predicted. An SIR greater than 1.0 indicates that more HAIs were observed than predicted, accounting for differences in the types of patients followed; conversely, an SIR less than 1.0 indicates that fewer HAIs were observed than predicted. See NHSN publication: www.cdc.gov/nhsn/PDFs/Newsletters/NHSN_NL_OCT_2010SE_final.pdf

Lower limit of the SIR 95% confidence interval. Calculated using exact Poisson distribution. The confidence interval quantifies the precision of the calculated SIR that is associated with random variation. NOTE: If the 95% CI for the SIR includes 1, the number of reported cases is not statistically different from that predicted.

Upper limit of the SIR 95% confidence interval. Calculated using exact Poisson distribution. The confidence interval quantifies the precision of the calculated SIR that is associated with random variation. NOTE: If the 95% CI for the SIR includes 1, the number of reported cases is not statistically different from that predicted.

The calculated SIR 95% confidence interval determines if the observed number of infections was significantly different from predicted. Based on the SIR 95% confidence interval, we labeled each SIR as indicating either: no difference (no difference in number of observed and predicted infections, high (more infections than predicted), low (fewer infections than predicted), or SIRs that were not tested due to too few central line-days or predicted number of infections <1 and number of observed infections <1.

Definition of symbols - † A consolidated hospital license that reported infection data aggregated over two or more acute care campuses. ¥ Hospitals with NHSN-predicted number of CLABSI 0 had no SIRs calculated by NHSN due to less precise comparisons; however, we calculated the SIR, but this SIR and its comparison are not as reliable as SIRs based on a larger number of predicted infections. For further detailed explanations, please see the "Technical Notes" of the Public Reports at http://www.cdph.ca.gov/hai. Source: CLABBSI in California Hospitals, January through December. California Department of Public Health.