Crafting a system-wide response to healthcare-associated infections.

Abstract

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 in 20 Americans admitted to hospitals is infected while receiving treatment for another condition. More than 48,000 people die each year of infections that are acquired in healthcare settings (1). And each year, 18,650 deaths follow infection with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a pathogen that is now easily transmitted in both community and healthcare settings (2). MRSA bacteremia significantly increases the length of hospital stays, the charges per patient, and hospital costs per case (3). According to a large-cohort study at Duke University Medical Center (Durham, NC), MRSA in surgical wounds resulted in more than a 12-fold increase in mortality vs. that in uninfected patients and more than a 3-fold increase vs. that in patients infected with methicillin-sensitive S. aureus (MSSA). The average total cost of treatment for a patient with an MRSA infection was ∼$40,000 more than for a patient with an MSSA infection and ∼$84,000 more than for an uninfected patient (4).