According to a recent report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 1 in 25 hospital patients have at least one Healthcare-Associated Infection (HAI). In 2011, an estimated 722,000 patients contracted an infection during a stay in an acute care hospital in the US. About 75,000 of these patients died or just over 205 deaths from healthcare-associated infections each day! The overall annual direct medical costs of HAI to U.S. hospitals ranges from $28.4 to $33.8 billion. Health insurance companies are paying the cost of these HAIs, which directly affects the health insurance premium.

Similarly, HealthGrades, analyzed approximately 40 million Medicare patients' records from 2007 through 2009. The study found that 52,127 Medicare inpatients developed a hospital-acquired bloodstream infection and 8,114 did not survive their hospitalization. Hospital-acquired bloodstream infections cost the federal government an estimated $1.2 billion.