UNION HOSPITAL
Patient Safety Tools: Infection Prevention

• Union Hospital infection rates due to any organism are not higher than the national benchmarks we compare to.
• Union Hospital has staph infections as do all hospitals, but do not see that we have more than what other hospitals are experiencing.
• Union Hospital pays special attention to drug resistant staph infections because they are resistant to most of the common drugs used to treat it, however it is not necessarily a more virulent organism than sensitive staphylococcus. (hospital acquired)
• Union Hospital is noticing an increase in the number of drug resistant staph infections being recognized in the ER. They appear to be a new organism currently being called (by the CDC) - Community Acquired MRSA, or CaMRSA. These patients are not generally being admitted to the hospital, they are in the community and present with skin infections primarily. These staph infections are not hospital acquired.
• Because this is indeed a different organism and the treatment guidelines are different than hospital acquired MRSA, Union Hospital's Infection Control Committee members have been making efforts to educate our staff about this.
  

Click the link below to read information from the CDC:

             www.cdc.gov/mrsa

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/hip/ARESIST/ca_mrsa_public.htm

The CDC makes the following information for download in pdf format.

Tips for Adult Patients to Prevent Antimicrobial Resistance
Tips for Surgery Patients to Prevent Antibiotic Resistance
Tips for Dialysis Patients to Prevent Antibiotic Resistance