Posts Tagged ‘MRSA’

2010 National Patient Safety Goals by Pat Iyer

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009
MRSA skin infection

MRSA skin infection

The Joint Commission has released the 2010 National Patient Safety Goals. The Joint Commission sets standards for, evaluates, and accredits more than 16,000 healthcare organizations and programs in the United States. These include hospitals and home health agencies as well as ambulatory care services, behavioral health programs, clinical laboratories, and long term care organizations. In addition, The Joint Commission provides certification of disease-specific care programs, primary stroke centers, and health care staffing services.

The 2010 effort has streamlined the goals, refined language, and emphasized the importance of the healthcare-associated infections goal. This goal was first released in 2009 and is to be fully implemented in 2010. There has been increased attention paid to the development of healthcare-associated infections due to multi-antibiotic resistant organisms. Some states collect information from hospitals and report on the incidence of such infections. Some plaintiff attorneys have filed suits related to hospital-acquired infections, under these theories of liability:

  1. Transmission of infection to the patient
  2. Delay in diagnosis of infection
  3. Improper treatment of infection

The 2010 Goal applies to methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), clostridium difficile (c-diff), Vancomycin-resistant enterococci, multidrug-resistant gram-negative bacteria, among others organisms. The goal focuses on:

  1. Conduction of periodic risk assessments for multidrug-resistant organism acquisition and transmission
  2. Provision of education for staff at the time of hire and annually thereafter
  3. Education of patients and families who are infected or colonized with a multidrug –resistant organism about healthcare-associated infection strategies
  4. Implementation of a surveillance program for multidrug-resistant organisms based on the risk assessment
  5. Measurement and monitoring of prevention processes
  6. Provision of multidrug-resistant organism process and outcome data to key stakeholders, including leaders, licensed independent practitioners, nursing staff and other clinicians
  7. Implementation of policies and practices aimed at reducing the risk of transmitting multidrug-resistant organisms
  8. When indicated by the risk assessment, implementation of a laboratory-based alert system that identifies new patients with multidrug-resistant organisms
  9. When indicated by the risk assessment, implementation of an alert system that identifies readmitted or transferred patients who are known to be positive for multidrug-resistant organisms

What can you do to protect yourself and your loved ones in a healthcare environment? The single biggest action you can take is to insist that healthcare providers wash their hands before contact with the patient. This is not the time to be shy. Speak up. This is an issue foremost in my mind this week as my husband prepares to enter the hospital for a triple bypass. I’ll be washing my hands before touching him and trusting that the healthcare providers will do the same.

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Posted in Damages, Healthcare Risk Management, Joint Commission, Medical malpractice, Patient safety | No Comments »

MRSA on phones by Pat Iyer

Wednesday, August 5th, 2009
MRSA

MRSA

A new culprit has emerged in the spread of the tough-to-kill “superbug” bacteria and other infections in hospitals — mobile phone headsets. Turkish researchers testing the phones of doctors and nurses working in hospitals found that 95 percent were contaminated with bacteria including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which can cause serious staph infections and is resistant to certain common antibiotics. The team from the Faculty of Medicine at the Ondokuz Mayis University also found that only 10 percent of the staff regularly cleaned their phones. “Our results suggest cross-contamination of bacteria between the hands of health care workers and their mobile phones. These mobile phones could act as a reservoir of infection which may facilitate patient-to-patient transmission of bacteria in a hospital setting,” the authors wrote in their study, published online in the Annals of Clinical Microbiology and Antimicrobials. To combat the spread of disease and infections through contaminated hand-held electronic devices, the authors recommended proactive strategies to disinfect and decontaminate the devices and the practice of improved hand hygiene.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a type of bacteria that is resistant to certain antibiotics. These antibiotics include methicillin and other more common antibiotics such as oxacillin, penicillin and amoxicillin. Staph infections, including MRSA, occur most frequently among persons in hospitals and healthcare facilities (such as nursing homes and dialysis centers) who have weakened immune systems. MRSA infections that occur in otherwise healthy people who have not been recently (within the past year) hospitalized or had a medical procedure (such as dialysis, surgery, catheters) are known as community-associated (CA)-MRSA infections. These infections are usually skin infections, such as abscesses, boils, and other pus-filled lesions.
Sources: Yahoo News 3/6/09, Centers for Disease Control
Look at http://www.cdc.gov/Features/HandHygiene/ for more information on MRSA, an organism implicated in many hospital-acquired infections.

My study of hospital acquired intravenous catheter-related infections showed that a study of 276 outbreaks of infections in Neonatal ICUs revealed the organisms most often involved were klebsiella, which was number one, and staphylococci, including MRSA. Blood stream infections were the most common type of healthcare associated infection in the NICU. MRSA can live for up to 11 days on surfaces such as patient charts, laminated tabletops and curtains. Now we know they can live on cell phones.

In September 2008 and April 2009, I taught risk managers about three of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Never Events, which include pressure ulcers, intravenous catheter-related infections, and urinary tract infections. Hospitals are not being reimbursed for care associated with the development of these conditions when they start within the hospital walls. The audiofile and Powerpoint presentation of the April 2009 event will be edited and made available in our webstore. Stay tuned.

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