Link: Infection Control.
Results of a United Kingdom study published online today suggest that the widely practiced approach of isolating intensive-care patients infected with MRSA does not reduce cross-infection. Authors of the study caution that this finding should not be extended to general hospital wards, and needs further confirmation from larger studies. Single room or group isolation of patients infected or colonized with MRSA is commonly used to reduce spread, but its benefit over and above other contact precautions is not known.
Peter Wilson, Geoff Bellingan, and colleagues from University College London Hospitals and the Royal Free Hospital in the UK, did a prospective one-year study in the intensive-care units of these two London teaching hospitals. Admission and weekly screens were used to ascertain the incidence of MRSA colonization. In the middle six months, MRSA-positive patients were not moved to a single room or treated as an infected group of patients unless they were at risk of spreading other serious infections. Standard precautions were practiced throughout, with hand hygiene encouraged at all times.
Patients’ characteristics, staff hand-washing frequency, and MRSA acquisition rates were similar in the periods when patients were moved and not moved. There were no changes in transmission of any particular strain of MRSA or in infection rate between management phases.
