The Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAI) Program in the California Department of Public Health Center for Health Care Quality oversees the prevention, surveillance, and reporting of HAI and antimicrobial resistance (AR) in California's hospitals and other healthcare facilities.  Unfortunately, infections acquired as a result of receiving health care remain a public health problem; most HAI are preventable by following infection prevention care practices.  Since 2010, the HAI Program:

• Receives and publicly reports California hospital HAI data to provide hospital quality information to the public and prompt providers to take action to prevent infections;
• Follows up with hospitals that have high infection rates;
• Convenes statewide and regional HAI/AR prevention collaboratives to coordinate prevention efforts among facilities that commonly share patients;
• Assists local public health agencies to investigate unusual infection occurrences and outbreaks that occur in healthcare facilities.