Surgical Site Infection Reports from California Hospitals

California hospitals report deep incisional and organ/space surgical site infections (SSIs) for 28 specific operative procedures to the state's public health department. The data includes statewide and hospital-specific incidence, procedure counts, observed and predicted infections, and standardized infection ratios (SIRs) with confidence intervals. It tracks progress toward a 30% reduction in SSI incidence from 2015 to 2020.

Use Cases

• Calculate the standardized infection ratio (SIR) for specific operative procedures to compare hospital performance against national baselines.
• Analyze trends in observed versus predicted infection counts across the 28 procedure types to identify high-risk surgeries.
• Track hospital progress toward the 30% SSI reduction goal by evaluating SIR performance against incremental annual targets.
• Compare SSI incidence (better, worse, or same) for procedures like colon surgery or hip prosthesis against the national baseline using provided confidence intervals.

Strengths

• Covers 28 specific operative procedure types, including abdominal aortic aneurysm repair, colon surgery, and hip prosthesis.
• Includes a key performance metric, the standardized infection ratio (SIR), calculated with CDC risk-adjusted models.
• Tracks progress toward a specific, measurable public health goal: a 30% reduction in SSI incidence from 2015 to 2020.
• Data is reported by hospitals to a state public health program via the CDC's National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN).

Limitations

• The specific number of rows (hospital reports), columns (variables), and file size are unknown from the provided input.
• Data dictionaries describing the variables are separate documents for each year, requiring additional downloads for full context.
• Analysis may be limited to California, potentially reducing generalizability to other geographic regions.

Provenance

Source

California Department of Public Health (CDPH) Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAI) Program, via CDC National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN).

Collection Method

Mandatory reporting by California hospitals in accordance with state Health and Safety Code.

Time Range

Includes data toward a 2020 reduction goal; specific start year not stated but models use a 2015 national baseline.

Freshness

Last updated metadata indicates December 2025, suggesting ongoing updates.

Geography

State of California, United States.