The risk of getting a hospital-acquired infection is decreasing. In a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers surveyed almost 200 hospitals caring for about 12,000 patients across the country in 2011 and again in 2015, reviewing medical records to find cases of health care-associated infection. They found that in 2015, hospital-acquired infections affected just 3.2 percent of patients, compared to 4 percent in 2011. They calculate that a patient’s risk of getting infected during a hospital stay was 16 percent lower in 2015 than in 2011. (Nicholas Bakalar, The New York Times)