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Reminder from the Maine Health Data Organization (MHDO) - Please take action by May 31

The National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) is the US CDC's secure internet-based data collection system managed by the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion.

Chapter 270, Section 2(H) states, “Each health care facility shall also authorize the MHDO to have access to the NHSN for facility-specific reports of data submitted for any healthcare associated infection measure under a state or federal mandate, for the purpose of public reporting.”

Below are the steps nursing facilities must take in order to grant MHDO access to their NHSN CDI data.
  • To access the NHSN reports of data, MHDO has created an NHSN group named: “MHDOnursingfacilityqualitydata.”
  • To join the Group, NHSN facility administrator (or user with administrative rights in your facility) will enter a 5-digit ID number and joining password the MHDO provided.
  • From the NHSN home page, select Group and Join. Then, enter the ID number, joining password, and click “Join Group.”
  • Follow the prompts in NHSN to finish joining the Group.
  • Immediately after joining the Group, the user will be taken to the Define Rights Template to agree to confer rights.
    • When you agree to confer rights, you are authorizing the MHDO access to the data as specified in the define rights template. Only MHDO has NHSN access to group members' data.
  • Review and click “Accept” at the bottom of the screen to accept the new define rights agreement.
  • For detailed instructions on how to join the Group and to agree to confer rights, you can access the NHSN document titled, “Data Sharing in NHSN: Joining a Group and Accepting the Confer Rights Template” here: http://www.cdc.gov/nhsn/pdfs/groups-startup/joingroup-current.pdf .
  • This YouTube video walks through the process of joining a group and conferring rights in NHSN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCmh6oRJhoE .
Staff contact: bhawkins@mehca.org