The “persistence” of healthcare-associated infections in long-term care settings earned a spot on a new list revealing the top 10 patient safety concerns in 2025.
The special long-term care mention landed at No. 8 in the list compiled by ECRI experts.
Healthcare-associated infections, or HAIs, stem from healthcare complications, according to ECRI’s Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns 2025 study.
Every day, 1 in 43 nursing home residents contracts an HAI, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistic cited in the ECRI report.
Skin and soft tissue infection, urinary tract infection, respiratory tract infection, and gastrointestinal infection were some of the most common HAIs that the researchers found in SNFs after combing through information in the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Reporting System.
Long-term care has evolved drastically over the years, 45-year LTC veteran Deb Burdsall told McKnight’s Long-Term Care News on Thursday. She believes an intensified focus on more acute conditions is partly why HAIs are increasing in prevalence.
“When you didn’t have residents and patients who had such striking acute care needs, the staff could focus on the basics of nursing care, like keeping people moving, keeping people clean and getting them out of bed,” she said. “They still do that, don’t get me wrong. But when you’ve got people with IVs and wound vacs, and that are post-surgical, staff have to be working on medication management, treatments and a lot of more acute things.”
A majority of the HAIs listed in the study are caused by multidrug-resistant organisms, possibly leading to severe illness, sepsis or death, the report said.
Other factors listed as key patient concerns this year included a lack of governance surrounding AI in healthcare, dismissing patient concerns, complexities with caring for veterans and ineffective discharge communications and coordination.
Stopping the spread
Researchers recommended many ways for SNFs to take action against the spread of HAIs.
“To prevent HAIs, LTC facilities [should] consider allocating funds to employ and continuously educate a full-time infection preventionist at your facility,” the authors wrote. “… Moreover, all staff must be properly educated on infection prevention measures, which can be difficult due to high staff turnover rates and a reliance on temporary staff.”
It was also recommended to leverage electronic tools to identify high-risk residents and implement precautions; track, examine, and share HAI investigations and data with staff members and stakeholders; and use resident councils to educate residents and their families on the importance of infection prevention and control.
Of all the recommendations, the core principles of infection prevention and control will always reign supreme, Burdsdall affirmed.
“I sound like a broken record, but until you get the core principles down, along with antimicrobial stewardship – not feeding people too many antibiotics – it’s all about the basics,” she said. “Keeping people well nourished, well hydrated, and all of the things that are just common sense that your parents and grandparents taught you.”
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