MRSA, Staph, Staff, Mersa, Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus Symptoms & Treatment

DeKalb, Fulton staph infection not being reported?

Link: DeKalb, Fulton staph infection numbers unusually low | ajc.com.

DeKalb and Fulton counties report relatively few cases of serious, drug-resistant staph infections to the state health department despite their large populations, data for the past three years show. Just 43 residents of DeKalb County (population 737,000) have been reported hospitalized with severe infections from a staph strain called MRSA. In Fulton County (population 992,000), the number is 76. Jason Getz/AJC (ENLARGE) Microbiologist Greg Fosheim examines genetic fingerprints of MRSA bacteria at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Jason Getz/AJC (ENLARGE) At the CDC, Valerie Schoonover examines samples of Staph. More stories • Drug resistant, sometimes lethal infections rising • MRSA kills some children in days • Q&A: All about MRSA • Photos: Puzzling germs By comparison, 146 cases have been reported involving residents of Cobb County (population 692,000). Even Floyd County (population 96,000) has reported 123 cases, according to a state database of reports filed from January 2005 through February. State health officials said there is no reason to believe there's more MRSA in Cobb County than in DeKalb and Fulton combined. The differences most likely reflect variations in how well doctors are reporting cases, they said. MRSA, which stands for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, is believed to infect thousands of Georgians every year. But most cases are never reported to the state. Often that's because the infections involve common treatable boils and pimples. Only severe or deadly infections that were contracted outside of hospitals are supposed to be reported to the Georgia Division of Public Health.

Canadian Province seeking hospital infection updates

Link: BurlingtonPost.com: Article: Province seeking hospital infection updates.

The status of a wider array of infections, possibly including Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) which has been a health issue at Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital, will become mandatory for hospitals to divulge publicly as the province moves to expand such reporting by year's end. Laurel Ostfield, press secretary to Minister of Health and Long Term Care George Smitherman, recently told the Post that the minister is keen on having hospitals across Ontario report on more infectious diseases. "What the minister told (the legislature) is that we are looking at a basket of (patient health) indicators." Ostfield said that as of March 31 this year all hospitals are now required to report statistics for surgical site infections, central line infections (ie: from catheters) and ventilator-associated pneumonia. "As far as C. difficile, MRSA and VRE, we are not saying that yet but Dr. Baker is recommending that they be reportable," Ostfield said of Michael Baker, a doctor with the University Health Network (UHN) and an adviser to Smitherman.

Hospitals Turn to Information Technology in MRSA Fight

Link: PR-USA.net - Hospitals Turn to Information Technology Solutions from Cardinal Health to Help Reduce Hospital-Acqu.

MedMined™ services provide real-time measurement, prevention of HAIs More than 250 hospitals across the country have turned to Cardinal Health to help prevent, detect, monitor and treat hospital-acquired infections (HAIs), a problem that affects one in every 20 patients across the U.S. and costs the health care industry an estimated $20 billion each year. The MedMined™ Data Mining Surveillance Service monitors the entire hospital for early signs of an emerging issue and targets improvement efforts where and when they can have the most impact. Using technology similar to that used by credit card companies to monitor purchases for fraud, this patented technology automatically identifies patterns indicative of specific and correctable quality breakdowns without predefined search criteria, user-defined control charts or alerts, or chart review. The new MRSA Scorecard provides a hospital-wide view of methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), allowing infection control practitioners to track the types and locations of MRSA infections throughout the hospital. The MRSA Scorecard allows hospitals to identify patients who have tested positive for the bacteria and distinguish between those who likely acquired the infection in the hospital and those who had an MRSA infection present on admission. Through this real-time view, hospitals can rapidly dispatch resources to limit the spread of MRSA infections that are responsible for an estimated 94,000 life-threatening conditions and 18,650 deaths annually in the U.S.[1]

Our Mum Had Mrsa So Why Doesnt Her Death Certificate Say So

Link: Our Mum Had Mrsa So Why Doesnt Her Death Certificate Say So (from Worcester News).

THE heartbroken children of a "glamorous granny" have accused health chiefs of a whitewash because they did not record that she had MRSA when she died. But hospital bosses say they took the correct decision and are only required to record blood infections of MRSA. Sybil Gwilliam, of Malvern, was told by a nurse she had the superbug on her body shortly before she died at Worcestershire Royal Hospital on Sunday, January 6. The 79-year-old great grandmother's death certificate records that she died of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), but her family say she was kept in isolation because doctors found traces of MRSA inside her nose. Her son Andy Mapp and daughter Lynette Warner were furious when they learnt that the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS did not record that she had MRSA when they published their December figures.

Hospitals resist reporting

Link: To cut staph cases, target hospitals | ajc.com.

Parents became alarmed earlier in the school year when 23 cases of skin bacteria MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) turned up in metro schools. The local cases were reported within weeks of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that for the first time quantified that approximately 19,000 patients a year die from the virulent superbug. But the CDC noted that 85 percent of those deadly infections were picked up by patients exposed to MRSA in hospitals, nursing homes and other health care settings. The Georgia Hospital Association opposes mandatory reporting of acquired infections as "duplicative, unnecessarily burdensome and costly."

MRSA Infections Continue to Go Unreported

Link: MRSA Infections Continue to Go Unreported | New Hampshire Public Radio.

So far, only a few states, not including New Hampshire, list MRSA as a pathogen that should be reported publicly. In New Hampshire, the legislature created a commission in 2005 to review and analyze hospital medical errors, unexpected adverse outcomes, and near misses. The New Hampshire Health Care Quality Assurance Commission is made up primarily of hospital representatives. Stephanie Wolf- Rosenblum, who is vice president of medical affairs at Southern New Hampshire Medical Center, chairs the commission. She says that the group isn’t charged with a focus on MRSA per se - but that they certainly understand how important it is. WOLF-ROSENBLUM: “Professionals in state of New Hampshire have their eye on infections as being one of the most important if not the most important adverse outcome for a patient receiving care in one of our facilities. It shows that it is very high on our radar screen and we are very much interested in it.” Rosenblum’s group has been focusing on some preventable infections. But she says that decisions on whether to track and report MRSA fall under the purview of the Department of Health and Human Services. Jose Montero is the state epidemiologist at HHS. And he says that he just doesn’t have the resources to track MRSA rates at hospitals.

MRSA UK 2006 Figures

Link: Health Protection Report | News | 2 February 2007.

Mandatory surveillance data on Clostridium difficile for January to September 2006 shows that there were 42,625 cases of Clostridium difficile infection in patients aged 65 years and over in England in the first three quarters of 2006 [1]. This represents an increase of 5.5% over the same period in 2005, when there were 40,390 cases reported. Although this is a smaller increase than seen previously (from 2004 to 2005 cases increased 17.2%), rates of infection remain high across England, particularly in small acute trusts, and the results show clearly the scope for improvement. The latest MRSA bacteraemia data show that there were 3391 MRSA bloodstream bacteraemias reported in England from April to September 2006, down 5.0% from the same period in 2005. The MRSA rate from April to September 2006 was 1.69 cases per 10,000 bed days, the same rate as was recorded during the first six months of mandatory surveillance (April to September 2001). Rates in the intervening periods fluctuated between 1.72 and 1.88 cases per 10,000 bed days. This is the first time the HPA has published quarterly figures for the mandatory surveillance of MRSA bloodstream infections and Clostridium difficile infection. Fgures will continue to be published on a quarterly basis as part of the commitment to open reporting. Due to this change in publication schedule and different start dates for the mandatory surveillance systems, the Clostridium difficile figures published today are for January to September 2006, and the MRSA figures for April to September 2006.

Internet aids MRSA fight

Link: HighWire Press -- Medline Abstract.

The prevalence of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Vancomycin-resistant Enterococci (VRE) continues to increase dramatically worldwide. Successful programs to reduce infection rates of resistant organisms require regional or national compliance with strict infection control measures and feedback on implementation and reduced rates. We partnered with local infection control professionals (ICPs) and leveraged our existing electronic network to create a comprehensive citywide network to track and uniformly respond to patients admitted with a history of MRSA or VRE. We successfully standardized and included electronic data from four out of six of the major healthcare systems within Indianapolis. We created tailored abstracts to deliver key infection control data to ICPs when a MRSA patient is admitted to a participating hospital. We created web-based data entry forms for ICPs to modify and enter new infection control data. This paper describes our design and initial implementation of a working electronic regional infection control network.

Death certificates must record superbugs

Link: Death certificates must record superbugs - Telegraph.

Doctors must record superbugs caught by hospital patients on death certificates to quell public fears that infection numbers are being covered up, the chief medical officer has ruled. Death certificates must record superbugs Latest data show the rate of MRSA in Britain, one of the highest in Europe, is falling Sir Liam Donaldson has written to all doctors telling them to ensure "healthcare associated infections" (HCAIs) such as MRSA or C.difficile are routinely included on death certificates. He said an infection must be recorded if it directly led to a patient's death or was a contributory factor. It would still be "a matter of clinical judgement" to decide if an infection present at the time of death was a contributory factor. Sir Liam acknowledged that the public believed official figures released by the Government underestimated the number of deaths in which infection had played a part.

Australia - common infection policies needed

Link: HighWire Press -- Medline Abstract.

Surveillance programmes for hospital-acquired infections differ amongst the Australian states. Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia have recent substantial initiatives in development of statewide programmes. Whilst the definitions for surgical site infections (SSIs) and bloodstream infections (BSI) developed by the Australian Infection Control Association (AICA) do not differ from the US National Nosocomial Infection Surveillance (NNIS) programme definitions for SSI and intensive care unit (ICU) acquired central line-associated BSI, only two states use NNIS risk adjustment methods in reporting infection rates. Differences exist in the surgical procedures under surveillance, ICU surveillance, hospital-wide BSI surveillance, staff health immunization surveillance, process measures such us surgical antibiotic prophylaxis and small hospital programmes. Only in the area of antibiotic use surveillance has national consensus been reached.