About CORHA

Healthcare-associated Infections (HAIs) including antimicrobial-resistant (AR) pathogens cause hundreds of thousands of illnesses
and deaths among U.S. patients each year. CORHA is a multidisciplinary collaboration of national associations and federal agencies working together since 2015 to improve methods to detect, investigate, control, and prevent HAI/AR outbreaks.

What We Do

Despite significant progress, patients still experience preventable harms in the context of outbreaks and other adverse events that stem from emerging infectious diseases with potential for healthcare transmission, unsafe healthcare practices, contaminated drugs, and medical devices. Consistent and coordinated approaches to outbreak detection, response, investigation, and control are needed to speed up detection of new threats, reporting outbreaks to public health, developing tools to support outbreak investigation, stop outbreaks from spreading, and inform prevention activities.

To address these needs, CDC’s Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion funded the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) and the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) to co-lead the Council for Outbreak Response: HAI/AR (CORHA). Council member representatives bring expertise in healthcare epidemiology and infection prevention, environmental health, public health laboratory activities and HAI/AR reporting and regulation at the local, state and federal levels.

 

How We Do It

The council focuses on making those who work on healthcare-related outbreaks more successful. CORHA supports the public health and healthcare communities so that they can work together more effectively, speeding up detection of new threats and stopping outbreaks from spreading.

CORHA’s workgroups are continually expanding the council’s suite of free online tools and resources to help you detect, investigate, and control outbreaks involving healthcare-associated infections, including antimicrobial-resistant pathogens.

The council’s foundational resource, The CORHA Principles and Practices, provides the knowledge base and insightful strategies needed for an effective Healthcare Outbreak Response.

CORHA also offers expertly curated tools plus pathogen and setting specific resources, helping to prevent and reduce harms from emerging infectious disease, infection control breaches, contaminated medical products and more.

Mission

To improve practices and policies at the local, state, and national levels for detection, investigation, control, and prevention of HAI/AR outbreaks across the healthcare continuum, including emerging infections and other risks with potential for healthcare transmission.

Vision

Public health and healthcare collaborating effectively to protect patients and prevent harms from HAI/AR outbreaks.