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Infection FAQs

Misleading and erroneous claims have been made about the quality of care at Stanford Health Care. The following Q&A answers the most important questions you may have or hear about the topic.

What does Stanford Health Care do to prevent infections?
  • At Stanford Health Care, patient care as well as patient support departments and services participate in robust, comprehensive infection reduction and prevention programs.
  • Hospital committees and task forces focus on decreasing hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) such as central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI), catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI), and C. difficile infections (C. diff).
  • Focused surveillance, including identification and tracking of HAIs, compliance with process measures, and monitoring for necessary corrective actions are the cornerstones of the program.
Why did Stanford Health Care have so many patients acquire C. diff infections from 2013 to 2016? What is the current number of patients who have acquired C. diff in 2018?
  • From 2013 through 2016, nearly 700 patients were diagnosed with C. diff. at Stanford Health Care, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
  • Not all of these 700 patients acquired C. diff. at Stanford Health Care.
  • A portion of these 700 patients with C. diff. were transfers to Stanford Health Care from other health care institutions. They arrived at Stanford Health Care already infected with C. diff. These cases are counted as Stanford Health Care cases but were not acquired at Stanford.
  • As part of Stanford Health Care’s continual efforts to improve its performance, we introduced a number of interventions in 2017 to reduce hospital-acquired C. diff. infections.
  • As a result of all of these interventions, the number of patients with hospital-onset C. diff. has significantly dropped over five years, as follows:
  • 2013 = 193
  • 2014 = 205
  • 2015 = 156
  • 2016 = 152
  • 2017 = 119
  • 2018 to date = 38
How does Stanford Health Care perform on hospital-acquired conditions?

Stanford Health Care consistently receives 4 out of 5 stars on CMS’s Hospital Compare website (approximately 22 percent of the hospitals in the nation receive 4 or 5 stars). The Hospital Compare star ranking summarizes 57 quality and safety measures and groups them in seven different domains. The safety domain includes eight measures, four of which relate to hospital-acquired conditions. Stanford Health Care’s performance in that specific domain is better than the average hospital score nationally.

What is Stanford Health Care’s current performance on quality?

U.S. News and World Report ranked Stanford Health Care 9th among all U.S. hospitals on its 2017-18 Best Hospitals Honor Roll.

Saving our patients’ lives and always keeping them safe is our top priority. We have numerous performance improvement projects aimed at getting better and continuously improving our quality of care. Read more about our current performance and initiatives