Cooperation among Hospitals Results in Better Infection Control in Transferred Patients, Study Shows

October 24, 2012 | Strategic Insights for Health System

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Noting that hospitals typically implement their own programs to reduce their healthcare-associated infection rates, such as rates of infection with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), and undertake measures unrelated to control measures at other hospitals, researchers writing in the October 2012 Health Affairs found that cooperation among hospitals can lead to gains in infection control that an individual hospital could not otherwise achieve. Using a computational model developed by the National Institutes of Health Models of Infectious Disease Agent Study MRSA Working Group, the researchers examined the impact of a two-part intervention: testing all patients at admission for MRSA colonization and employing contact isolation procedures for all staff interacting with MRSA-positive patients. The virtual simulation found that the implementation of surveillance and isolation at one hospital would decrease MRSA prevalence not only in that hospital but also in many other hospitals in the county that had not implemented the intervention. The magnitude of the effect depended on which hospital implemented the intervention.

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