Professor Collignon said the nation's healthcare providers were not collecting enough information on infections - a weakness preventing the hospital system from reducing infection numbers.

''This isn't rocket science,'' he said. ''Realistically there are hundreds of people dying each year from healthcare-related infections. I reckon half of these are preventable. We'd like to have none,'' he said.

''Do we need to do more? The answer is 'yes'.

''If you get golden staph in your bloodstream, there's a 20 per cent chance of dying within 30 days.''

This ratio suggests a dozen or more patients in Canberra could be dying every couple of years because of staph infections contracted in ACT hospitals, although it is not known whether exact numbers have been calculated.

One of the biggest infection causes is staff not washing their hands or not killing germs with alcoholic liquid.

Canberra Hospital staff failed to meet the national benchmark for hand hygiene in four out of five of its audits in the 18 months to March this year.

Latest figures show 57 patients had golden staph in their bloodstream at Canberra Hospital in the two years to June 2012.

An ACT Health spokeswoman said the hospital acknowledged hand hygiene needed to be improved.

The spokeswoman noted the number of healthcare-associated infections was generally below those reported by similar hospitals in other states. She said numerous initiatives were being used to improve results, including guest speakers, posters and wards having their own results displayed on their doors.

Calvary Public Hospital, which reports its hand hygiene rates have met the benchmark after each of its audits, recorded nine cases in the same two-year period.

All the golden staph figures reported for Canberra so far have stayed within the target of two infections for 10,000 days of treatment.

Calvary Private Hospital and Calvary John James Hospital have not reported their staph infection rates on the MyHospitals website.

Professor Collignon, from the Australian National University Medical School, said rates for deeply rooted infections must be gathered - a goal being pursued by the Australian Quality and Safety Commission.

''In Scandinavia they have a deep-seated infection rate of 1:200,'' the professor said.

''From various figures I've seen, it's about 5 per cent here (10:200). If you really want to know what's going on, you need to have the data.

''Sweden measures it [the infection rate] for every joint operation.

''In terms of joint operations, the hospitals which do the most operations tend to have the lowest infection rates.

''International figures suggest 8 per cent of admissions to hospitals in Australia, the United States and Europe contract a healthcare-related infection,'' Professor Collignon said.

''A small number will contract something serious. Remember there are millions of admissions into Australian hospitals each year, so the numbers are significant.''