Louisville VA Reduces MRSA to 1/20th of 2007 Rates

Louisville (Ky.) Veterans Affairs Medical Center has reduced its rate of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus to about one-twentieth of what it was before 2007, according to a report in the Courier Journal.

Through use of a bundle intervention, MRSA at the Louisville VA has fallen from 1.89 infections per 1,000 bed days to 0.09 infections per 1,000 bed days.

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The particular bundle intervention — VA MRSA bundle — does not apply to all admitted patients but is performed on most, unless a patient refuses. It consists of a nasal swab, contact precautions for MRSA carriers, hand hygiene precautions and institutional culture recommendations.

The success of the VA's MRSA bundle intervention is well documented in peer-reviewed journals, with an article on the practice across the system's hospitals published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2011.

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