Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococci (VRE) Bloodstream Infections in California Hospitals

California Health and Safety Code section 1288.55(a)(1) requires general acute care hospitals to report all cases of vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) bloodstream infections (BSI) to the California Department of Public Health (CDPH). Hospitals report VRE data to CDPH via the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) following NHSN protocols and definitions.

CDPH downloads California hospital VRE BSI data from NHSN and analyzes the data to describe prevention progress in an annual public report of healthcare-associated infections. CDPH publishes annual VRE BSI data in datasets that include the number of VRE BSI reported by each California hospital in the specified reporting year and the hospital-onset VRE BSI rate. The VRE BSI rate is calculated by dividing the number of cases by the total number of patient days; the rate is then reported per 10,000 patient days. VRE BSI rates are not risk adjusted because there are no such methods available at this time. Aggregate mean rates used for comparisons are stratified by hospital type (and for community hospitals, by bed size). The unadjusted VRE BSI rates herein are affected by the clinical services provided, infection control practices, and surveillance methods.

Detailed information about the variables included in each dataset are described in the accompanying data dictionaries for the year of interest.

For general information about NHSN, surveillance definitions, and reporting requirements for VRE, please visit: https://www.cdc.gov/nhsn/index.html

To link the CDPH facility IDs with those from other Departments, including OSHPD, please reference the "Licensed Facility Cross-Walk" Open Data table at: https://data.chhs.ca.gov/dataset/licensed-facility-crosswalk.

For information about healthcare-associated infection prevention progress in California hospitals and statewide prevention goals, please visit: https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CHCQ/HAI/Pages/HAIreport.aspx