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Category Archives: nosocomial

March 28, 2009

Consumers Union: 18% of Americans have had a hospital infection in self or family

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Constant readers: You may not be aware that Consumers Union (yes, the nonprofit that publishes the magazine Consumer Reports) has a marvelous project called Stop Hospital Infections that has been instrumental in pushing for hospital-infection reporting and MRSA-control laws, offering support to citizen activists who want change in their states and offering text of a [...]
Written by Maryn McKenna
Also posted in MRSA, hospitals, legislation, mandatory reporting
March 26, 2009

MRSA research at Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America meeting

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As promised, a round-up of some of the research presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA), held last weekend in San Diego. (Disclosure: I was on the faculty for the meeting; in exchange for co-hosting a session, SHEA will be reimbursing me for airfare and hotel. I wasn’t [...]
Written by Maryn McKenna
Also posted in ERs, MRSA, SHEA, colonization, hand hygiene, hospitals, infection control, invasive
March 26, 2009

Ten tips for avoiding hospital infections

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ScientificAmerican.com (disclosure: I have written a story for them, and it is edited by a friend) has a great interview with a hospital epidemiologist about things to do to avoid hospital infections. It’s a smart list, with some non-obvious things on it. For instance: 5. Make sure you’re kept warmThe air temperature in operating rooms typically hovers [...]
Written by Maryn McKenna
Also posted in antibiotics, hospitals
February 18, 2009

MRSA reductions in ICUs – good news, but qualified

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Constant readers, you will no doubt have seen the overnight news about a paper by CDC authors in the Journal of the American Medical Association, reporting a significant decline in catheter-associated bloodstream infections (known by the uncatchy acronym CLABSIs, and yes, people pronounce it “klab-seez”) in intensive care units. Our results show that the 6 most [...]
Written by Maryn McKenna
Also posted in CDC, MRSA, hospitals, infection control, mandatory reporting, surveillance
February 17, 2009

Did MRSA kill an Ontario nurse?

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Here is a story that was flagged by several commenters (welcome, Canadian readers), and is being reported by a number of Canadian news outlets: A nurse who worked in the critical care unit at Victoria Hospital in London, Ont. has died, possibly of MRSA, and the Ontario Ministry of Labor is investigating whether her death [...]
Written by Maryn McKenna
Also posted in Canada, MRSA, UK, occupational
December 23, 2008

Brilliant entrepreneur asks: "So why CAN’T you fix this?"

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Constant readers, you’ll note that posting has slowed down a bit: I am deep into a chapter that is giving me some difficulty. (And I seem to be playing holiday host to an unexpected bout of bronchitis. I’m sure I didn’t need both lungs…) But here’s something that crossed my monitor this morning, and it’s worth [...]
Written by Maryn McKenna
Also posted in Europe, MRSA, UK, colonization, decolonization, hospitals, infection control
November 26, 2008

MRSA in newborns on Prince Edward Island: HA? CA? Matters?

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There’s been a running story for several weeks now about the Queen Elizabeth Hospital on Prince Edward Island (home to mussels and Anne of Green Gables). The hospital struggled earlier this year with an outbreak of MRSA and a second outbreak of VRE among adult patients. It got those under control, but since earlier this [...]
Written by Maryn McKenna
Also posted in Canada, MRSA, colonization, community, decolonization, disinfection, hospitals, infection control
November 16, 2008

New newspaper series on HA-MRSA

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The Seattle Times this morning launched an three-day investigative project on incidence of HA-MRSA in Washington State that is worth reading. As readers here already know, MRSA is not a reportable disease, and there are no diagnosis codes that directly correspond to MSRA that make infection or death easily trackable through hospital records or death certificates. [...]
Written by Maryn McKenna
Also posted in colonization, hand hygiene, hospitals, infection control, invasive, medical errors, rapid testing, surveillance
November 9, 2008

MRSA in meat in Louisiana: pig meat, human strain

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On Nov. 3, I posted on an enterprising group of TV stations in the Pacific Northwest who had retail meat in four states tested for MRSA. I said at the time that it was the first finding of MRSA in meat in the US that I knew of. Turns out that I was wrong by three [...]
Written by Maryn McKenna
Also posted in MRSA, MSSA, ST 398, USA 100, USA 300, animals, colonization, community, food, pigs, zoonotic
October 27, 2008

Outbreak of Zyvox-resistant staph (breaking news from ICAAC 2)

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Physicians from Madrid reported today on what’s believed to be the first outbreak of MRSA caused by a strain that was resistant to linezolid, usually known as Zyvox, a relatively new and costly drug that is used for complicated MRSA infections and when older drugs fail. Linezolid resistance in single cases has been recorded before — [...]
Written by Maryn McKenna
Also posted in ICAAC, IDSA, MRSA, Zyvox, colonization, hand hygiene, hospitals, infection control, linezolid