FAQs: Annual Surveys

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Annual Hospital Survey

Q1. I have saved my survey, but I am getting an alert that it is incomplete.Many users see the “incomplete” alert because they clicked “Save” instead of **“Submit. ** Saving your survey only stores your progress so you can return later—it does not finalize your responses. To officially complete the survey, you must click the “Submit” button at the bottom of the survey.

If any required questions are missing when you click “Submit,” a pop-up will appear showing you which question was skipped and will take you directly to it. Once all required questions are answered and you click “Submit,” your survey will be recorded as complete, and the incomplete alert will no longer appear.

Annual Hospital Survey: Teaching Status

Q2: Which designation of teaching status should I indicate on the annual hospital survey?Select the highest level that your facility meets:

Major: Facility trains post-graduate medical (MD/DO only) residents/fellows AND medical students and/or nursing students

Graduate: Facility trains only post-graduate medical (MD/DO only) residents/fellows

**Undergraduate: **Facility trains current medical students and/or nursing students

**Note: **

• There is no minimum number of students that must be present in your facility to meet this designation, and it is not necessary for your facility to be attached/affiliated with a medical school.
• Physician Assistant (PA), Nurse Practitioner (NP) and other specialty trainings typically occur in various healthcare settings, including teaching hospitals, but they are not exclusively categorized under the three types of teaching hospitals (major, graduate, and undergraduate) as defined for medical education.

Annual Hospital Survey: units designated as Inpatient Rehabilitation Facilities (IRFs)

Q3: My acute care hospital includes a CMS-certified Rehab Unit mapped as a location within the hospital (specifically, the CCN for the Rehab unit includes an ‘R’ or ‘T’ in the 3rd position). Do I include the number of rehab beds, patient days and admissions from this unit on the annual hospital survey, the mini-survey for CMS-IRF unit or both?The number of rehab beds should be counted on both the hospital and CMS-IRF unit surveys. On the hospital survey, include these beds in the count for “All other inpatient locations”. In addition, counts from these locations should be included in the total facility patient days and admissions on the hospital survey.

Annual Hospital Survey: Units designated as Inpatient Rehabilitation Facilities (IRFs)

Q4. As a free-standing IRF that is enrolled as a separate facility in NHSN (specifically, the last 4 digits of the IRF CCN are between 3025–3099). Do I include the number of rehab beds from this unit on the annual hospital survey?Since the Rehab facility is a separate NHSN facility**, **the number of rehab beds, patient days, and admissions should NOT be counted on the hospital survey and will be included only on the REHAB survey.

Annual Hospital Survey: Units Designated as Inpatient Psychiatric Facilities (IPFs) and Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNFs)

Q5. My hospital has an IPF and/or SNF unit located within the hospital. Do I include counts from these units on the annual hospital survey for patient days, admissions, and total bed size?IPF: Yes, counts from the IPF unit should be included on the annual hospital survey, even if the IPF has a separate CCN. If your IPF facility is not geographically located within the hospital, the counts should NOT be included with the hospital’s count. Instead, the IPF facility should enroll as a separate NHSN facility and complete a separate annual facility survey.

SNF: If your SNF has a separate CCN from the hospital, it should be enrolled as a separate NHSN facility. In this case, counts from the SNF unit should NOT be counted on the acute care hospital’s survey.  If your SNF shares a common CCN with the acute care hospital, then these counts should be included on the hospital survey.

Annual Survey Bed Size for All Facility Types

Q6. During the previous calendar year, my facility’s number of beds changed during the year. What number should I report for the total number of beds on the annual survey?Users should report the number of beds that were setup and staffed for the majority (six months or greater) of the previous calendar year in a facility. If the change occurred with an equal number of months captured in a year, then users should report the number of total beds that were in place at the end of the year. Do not use the number of licensed beds.

Annual Surveys for newly enrolled facilities

Q7. My facility just opened last month, and we are currently enrolling in NHSN. Do I need to complete an annual survey?

All facilities that have recently joined NHSN do have to complete a survey upon enrollment for the prior calendar year. However, if your facility was not operational during the prior calendar year, you will indicate this during your enrollment process. Then, you will be prompted to complete only select questions from the current calendar year’s partial Patient Safety annual survey. The questions that are unable to be answered at the time of enrollment will be grayed out. However, at the start of the calendar year following when a facility has enrolled in NHSN, they will have to complete the same annual survey, but at this time, they will have to complete all the questions.

If NOT operational in the prior year:

If your facility was not operational during the prior calendar year, and this was indicated during the enrollment process, then, the facility will be prompted to complete only select questions from the current calendar year’s partial Patient Safety annual survey. The questions that are unable to be answered at the time of enrollment will be grayed out. Your facility will see a partial survey alert in the NHSN application.  You should leave the alert unresolved until you have data to report. We advise facilities to return to the survey in 6 months to update. For the facility to calculate an SIR, you will need to resolve the Partial survey alert. At the start of the calendar year following when a facility enrolled in NHSN, they will have to complete the same annual survey, but at this time, they will have to complete all the questions. For example, if your facility enrolled in NHSN during 2025 but was not operational in 2024, you will complete a partial 2025 PSC annual survey containing basic facility characteristic questions. In the next calendar year, 2026, you will have to complete the entire 2025 PSC annual survey with the data for your facility from the 2025 calendar year.

If operational in the prior year:

If your facility was operational during the prior calendar year, and this was indicated during enrollment, then the facility will be prompted to complete a full PSC annual survey. For example, if your facility enrolled during 2025 and was operational for 2024, then you will complete a full version of the 2024 PSC annual survey; all questions will be required.

Q8: When should I check the checkbox - facility not operational in the Patient Safety Annual Survey or the CMS IRF Unit Survey?You should use the checkbox only if your facility or CMS IRF unit was NOT operational in the calendar year 2025, no monthly reporting plans were submitted for that year, and no HAI data (including summary data, device days, events or procedures data) was entered for that year.

Annual surveys for all enrolled facilities

Q9. When are the patient safety component annual surveys due?Patient Safety annual facility surveys must be completed and saved to your NHSN account no later than March 1st of each calendar year. Failure to save a survey to NHSN by this date will result in future monthly reporting plans to be locked for editing until the most recent survey is completed.

Note: For facilities that participate in a CMS Quality Reporting Program, responses entered on the annual surveys can impact various HAIs SIRs. If the annual facility survey is not completed before the CMS Quarter 3 deadline, NHSN will utilize the most recently completed survey for SIR risk adjustment.

Q10. I need to make a correction to my saved survey. Am I allowed to edit survey data after I have already submitted it?All PSC Annual Surveys can be edited at any time in NHSN. Please remember survey data is used for risk adjustment calculations that are used in generating SIRs. Changes to these values may change your SIR. Data that has been submitted to CMS Inpatient Quality Reporting will not be re-submitted after a deadline has passed even if edited survey data changes your facility’s SIR.

Annual Hospital Survey: Neonatal Admissions

Q11. Who in my facility should I contact that collects admission data by birthweight?To collect admissions data by birthweight category, we suggest first speaking to the NICU Medical Director or Nursing Director, as they are usually familiar with such data and how to access it. If neither can assist, try asking Quality Data Analysts in either the NICU or the hospital. They often can access admissions data by birthweight. These analysts may have different names in different hospitals and are usually part of a larger department available to assist with data needs.

Q12. My hospital provides care to well newborns, but we do not have a special care nursery or NICU. Are we required to complete the neonatal portion of the survey?Hospitals providing any level of neonatal care are required to complete neonatal-specific survey questions. Hospitals that provide care to well newborns, but do not have a Level II or higher neonatal unit will record 0 admissions for the question, “Excluding Level I units (well newborn nurseries), record the number of neonatal admissions to Special Care Nurseries (Level II) and Intensive Care Units (Level II/III, Level III, Level IV),” on the Hospital Survey.

Q13. As part of our NHSN CLABSI reporting plan, we collect information on patient days by birthweight category, but we do not collect information on the number of admissions by birthweight category. Can my facility report the number of patient days for the hospital annual survey questions regarding Level II or higher neonatal units’ number of inborn and outborn admissions?No. These questions are asking hospitals to report the number of annual admissions. Additional data collection may be required to determine the number of annual admissions by birthweight category, but only report admissions and not patient days.

Q14. How are outborn admissions defined?

• **Outborn admission: **admission of an infant delivered outside of your hospital.
• **Inborn admission: **admission of an infant delivered inside of your hospital.

Q15. Is the annual hospital survey question on neonatal admissions to Level II or higher neonatal units asking about the weight of the infant at birth or their weight upon admission?These questions are asking about the weight of the infant at birth.

Annual Survey: Data Quality Dashboard

Q16. What is the Annual Survey Data Quality Dashboard?The NHSN PSC Annual Survey Data Quality Dashboard identifies and displays survey data checked for data quality. The dashboard alerts users to substantial differences that warrant further review to ensure accurate survey data. The dashboard features survey data from the two most recent PSC Annual Surveys, provides recommendations to review specific survey data, and offers functionality for editing the survey data within the dashboard, simplifying the process for editing the Annual Survey. Additional information on the dashboard is available in the Dashboard Quick Reference Guide located on the Annual Survey Webpage.

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