Evanston-Northwestern Study Proves Effectiveness of MRSA Screening to Reduce
Hospital Infections
NEW YORK, March 18 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A new study in the Annals of
Internal Medicine adds weight to the growing evidence that screening incoming
hospital patients for the bacterium MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus
aureus) is effective, and indeed essential, to reduce MRSA hospital
infections. The study, published yesterday, resulted in a 70% reduction in
MRSA hospital infections at the three hospitals in the Evanston Northwestern
Healthcare System, located near Chicago.
This was the first "large scale, universal admission MRSA surveillance program
in the United States," researchers reported, but the stunning results are
consistent with at least fifty earlier studies showing that it is not possible
to stop the spread of drug-resistant bacteria from patient to patient without
screening. "To stop MRSA from racing through the hospital, you must know the
source, that is, which patients are bringing it in," says Betsy McCaughey,
Ph.D., Chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths. "Without
screening, the germs spread rapidly on equipment, lab coats, blood pressure
cuffs, wheel chairs, virtually every surface. Patients who are carrying MRSA
unknowingly shed it everywhere, putting the patients around them at risk."
Evanston-Northwestern researchers used a rapid test (average turnaround time
from swabbing the patient to receiving test results at bedside was 18 hours).
The rapid test enabled caregivers to promptly isolate patients identified as
MRSA positive, use gowns, gloves and dedicated or disposable equipment when
treating them, and apply mupirocin to their nasal passages and chlorhexidine
to their skin to reduce the presence of the bacteria.
"This new study sets the record straight, correcting the misimpression created
by an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association on March 12th
suggesting that screening for MRSA was ineffective. That previous study, done
in one surgical ward of a GenevaSwitzerland hospital, "was seriously flawed,"
according to McCaughey, "rendering its findings insignificant." In that
previous study, many patients were not tested until they had been in the
hospital twelve hours, and test results were delayed an average of 22.5 hours
after that --- a 34.5 hour delay overall. In fact, 41% of patients had already
had their surgeries, before their test results were known. Consequently, the
precautions, including isolation, that are supposed to be taken in response to
an MRSA positive result, were not taken. The delay allowed the germ to spread
to other patients.
"The evidence is overwhelming that hospitals cannot effectively prevent the
spread of MRSA bacteria if they don't know which patients carry these germs,"
says McCaughey. "Screening saves lives. The federal Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention should call on all hospitals to screen incoming
patients for MRSA."
SOURCE Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths
Betsy McCaughey, Ph.D. of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths,
+1-212-369-3329, +1-212-534-3047, +1-917-748-0227
