Hospital-Acquired infections - not as rare as you think Think you are safe from infection once you enter the sterile confines of a hospital? Think again. When it comes to transmitting bacteria, it is the seemingly harmless items (mobile phones, ECG wires, and neckties) that a patient should fear. Nearly half of the neckties collected from doctors at one New York hospital carried potentially morbific bacteria, which can be transferred to immunocompromised patients. Hospital-acquired infections, called nosocomial infections, are not rare: an estimated 4 million cases occur annually in the U.S. alone. Nosocomial germs come in the form of viruses, fungi, and most commonly bacteria, which cause urinary tract infections, surgical wound infections, blood poisoning, pneumonia, and death.