Cepheid Xpert MRSA cycle threshold in discordant colonization results and as a quantitative measure of nasal colonization burden.

We analyzed the cycle threshold (C(T)) of PCR surveillance MRSA swabs obtained from veterans. Lower C(T) on admission was associated with a positive culture from nasal swabs at discharge. Compared to PCR, direct plating of nasal swabs performed poorly, especially for patients with an elevated C(T). The C(T) is strongly correlated with quantitative nasal cultures. Clinical and infection control applications of the C(T) have yet to be defined and warrant further evaluation.

Stethoscope hygiene: A call to action. Recommendations to update the CDC guidelines.

Healthcare-acquired infections are a tremendous challenge to the US medical system. Stethoscopes touch many patients, but current guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not support disinfection between each patient. Stethoscopes are rarely disinfected between patients by healthcare providers. When cultured, even after disinfection, stethoscopes have high rates of pathogen contamination, identical to that of unwashed hands. The consequence of these practices may bode poorly in the coronavirus 2019 disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Alternatively, the CDC recommends the use of disposable stethoscopes. However, these instruments have poor acoustic properties, and misdiagnoses have been documented. They may also serve as pathogen vectors among staff sharing them. Disposable aseptic stethoscope diaphragm barriers can provide increased safety without sacrificing stethoscope function. We recommend that the CDC consider the research regarding stethoscope hygiene and effective solutions to contemporize this guidance and elevate stethoscope hygiene to that of the hands, by requiring stethoscope disinfection or change of disposable barrier between every patient encounter.

Brucellosis Initially Misidentified as Ochrobactrum anthropi Bacteremia: A Case Report and Review of the Literature.

Automated identification systems may misidentify Brucella, the causative agent of brucellosis, which may be re-emerging in the United States as the result of an expanding feral swine population. We present a case of Brucella suis likely associated with feral swine exposure that was misidentified as Ochrobactrum anthropi, a phylogenetic relative.

Persistent Value of the Stethoscope in the Age of COVID-19.

The stethoscope has long been at the center of patient care, as well as a symbol of the physician-patient relationship. While advancements in other diagnostic modalities have allowed for more efficient and accurate diagnosis, the stethoscope has evolved in parallel to address the needs of the modern era of medicine. These advancements include sound visualization, ambient noise reduction/cancellation, Bluetooth (Bluetooth SIG Inc, Kirkland, Wash) transmission, and computer algorithm diagnostic support. However, despite these advancements, the ever-changing climate of infection prevention, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, has led many to question the stethoscope as a vector for infectious diseases. Stethoscopes have been reported to harbor bacteria with contamination levels comparable with a physician's hand. Although disinfection is recommended, stethoscope hygiene compliance remains low. In addition, disinfectants may not be completely effective in eliminating microorganisms. Despite these risks, the growing technological integration with the stethoscope continues to make it a highly valuable tool. Rather than casting our valuable tool and symbol of medicine aside, we must create and implement an effective method of stethoscope hygiene to keep patients safe.

Measuring the scope and magnitude of hospital-associated infection in the United States: the value of prevalence surveys.

Health care-associated infections are a major public health concern both in the United States and abroad, contributing to increased morbidity, mortality, and health care costs. As a consequence of changes in health care delivery and increasing demands on infection prevention, targeted surveillance has become common in the United States, focusing on areas of the hospital where a patient's risk for health care-associated infection is greatest, as opposed to hospital-wide surveillance; the latter can be used to estimate the national burden of health care-associated infections. Many countries have shown that prevalence surveys can be used to quantify the burden of disease and to help establish priorities to accomplish national goals of prevention of health care-associated infection. Several different surveillance methods have been used, prohibiting comparisons of results among methods. We address some of these key differences and provide recommendations in areas that should be considered when designing a point prevalence survey in the United States.

Antimicrobial-associated risk factors for Clostridium difficile infection.

Antimicrobial therapy plays a central role in the pathogenesis of Clostridium difficile infection (CDI), presumably through disruption of indigenous intestinal microflora, thereby allowing C. difficile to grow and produce toxin. Investigations involving animal models and studies performed in vitro suggest that inhibitory activity against C. difficile and differences in the propensity to stimulate toxin production may also influence the likelihood that particular drugs may cause CDI. Although nearly all antimicrobial classes have been associated with CDI, clindamycin, third-generation cephalosporins, and penicillins have traditionally been considered to harbor the greatest risk. Recent studies have also implicated fluoroquinolones as high-risk agents, a finding that is most likely to be related in part to increasing fluoroquinolone resistance among epidemic strains (i.e., restriction-endonuclease analysis group BI/North American PFGE type 1 strains) and some nonepidemic strains of C. difficile. Restrictions in the use of clindamycin and third-generation cephalosporins have been associated with reductions in CDI. Because use of any antimicrobial has the potential to induce the onset of CDI and disease caused by other health care-associated pathogens, antimicrobial stewardship programs that promote judicious use of antimicrobials are encouraged in concert with environmental and infection control-related efforts.

Importance of bacterial burden among methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus carriers in a long-term care facility.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the prevalence and transmission of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) nasal colonization, as well as risk factors associated with MRSA carriage, among residents of a long-term care facility (LTCF). DESIGN: Prospective, longitudinal cohort study. SETTING: A 100-bed Veterans Administration LTCF. PARTICIPANTS: All current and newly admitted residents of the LTCF during an 8-week study period. METHODS: Nasal swab samples were obtained weekly and cultured on MRSA-selective media, and the cultures were graded for growth on a semiquantitative scale from 0 (no growth) to 6 (heavy growth). Epidemiologic data for the periods before and during the study were collected to assess risk factors for MRSA carriage. RESULTS: Of 83 LTCF residents, 49 (59%) had 1 or more nasal swab cultures that were positive for MRSA; 34 (41%) were consistently culture-negative (designated "noncarriers"). Of the 49 culture-positive residents, 30 (36% of the total of 83 residents) had all cultures positive for MRSA (designated "persistent carriers"), and 19 (23% of the 83 residents) had at least 1 culture, but not all cultures, positive for MRSA (designated "intermittent carriers"). Multivariate analysis showed that participants with at least 1 nasal swab culture positive for MRSA were likely to have had previous hospitalization (odds ratio, 3.9) or wounds (odds ratio, 8.2). Persistent carriers and intermittent carriers did not differ in epidemiologic characteristics but did differ in mean MRSA growth score (3.7 vs 0.7; P<.001). CONCLUSIONS: Epidemiologic characteristics differed between noncarriers and subjects with at least 1 nasal swab culture positive for MRSA. However, in this LTCF population, only the degree of bacterial colonization (as reflected by mean MRSA growth score) distinguished persistent carriers from intermittent carriers. Understanding the burden of colonization may be important when determining future surveillance and control strategies.

Clinical relevance of metronidazole and peripheral neuropathy: a systematic review of the literature.

The objective of this paper was to review and evaluate the literature on metronidazole-associated peripheral neuropathy and determine the relevance in clinical practice. MEDLINE/PubMed, EBSCO, and Google Scholar were searched through February 2017 using the search terms metronidazole and peripheral neuropathy, or polyneuropathy, or paresthesia, or neurotoxicity. Relevant case reports, retrospective studies, surveys, and review articles were included. Bibliographies of all relevant articles were reviewed for additional sources. Overall, metronidazole is generally well tolerated, but serious neurotoxicity, including peripheral neuropathy, has been reported. The overall incidence of peripheral neuropathy associated with metronidazole is unknown. Our review found 36 case reports (40 unique patients) of metronidazole-associated peripheral neuropathy, with most cases (31/40) receiving a >42 g total (>4 weeks) of therapy. In addition, we reviewed 13 clinical studies and found varying rates of peripheral neuropathy from 0 to 50%. Within these clinical studies, we found a higher incidence of peripheral neuropathy in patients receiving >42 g total (>4 weeks) of metronidazole compared with those patients receiving ≤42 g total (17.9% vs. 1.7%). Nearly all patients had complete resolution of symptoms. In conclusion, peripheral neuropathy is rare in patients who receive ≤42 g total of metronidazole. Patients who receive higher total doses may be at higher risk of peripheral neuropathy, but symptoms resolve after discontinuation of therapy in most patients. Antimicrobial stewardship programs may consider use of antibiotic combinations that include metronidazole over broad-spectrum alternatives when treating with ≤42 g total of the drug (≤4 weeks).

Estimating health care-associated infections and deaths in U.S. hospitals, 2002.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to provide a national estimate of the number of healthcare-associated infections (HAI) and deaths in United States hospitals. METHODS: No single source of nationally representative data on HAIs is currently available. The authors used a multi-step approach and three data sources. The main source of data was the National Nosocomial Infections Surveillance (NNIS) system, data from 1990-2002, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Data from the National Hospital Discharge Survey (for 2002) and the American Hospital Association Survey (for 2000) were used to supplement NNIS data. The percentage of patients with an HAI whose death was determined to be caused or associated with the HAI from NNIS data was used to estimate the number of deaths. RESULTS: In 2002, the estimated number of HAIs in U.S. hospitals, adjusted to include federal facilities, was approximately 1.7 million: 33,269 HAIs among newborns in high-risk nurseries, 19,059 among newborns in well-baby nurseries, 417,946 among adults and children in ICUs, and 1,266,851 among adults and children outside of ICUs. The estimated deaths associated with HAIs in U.S. hospitals were 98,987: of these, 35,967 were for pneumonia, 30,665 for bloodstream infections, 13,088 for urinary tract infections, 8,205 for surgical site infections, and 11,062 for infections of other sites. CONCLUSION: HAIs in hospitals are a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in the United States. The method described for estimating the number of HAIs makes the best use of existing data at the national level.

Changes in the epidemiology of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in intensive care units in US hospitals, 1992-2003.

The proportion of Staphylococcus aureus isolates that were methicillin resistant (MRSA) increased from 35.9% in 1992 to 64.4% in 2003 for hospitals in the National Nosocomial Infections Surveillance system. During the same period, there was a decrease in resistance rates for several non- beta -lactam drugs among the MRSA isolates.

Comparing bloodstream infection rates: the effect of indicator specifications in the evaluation of processes and indicators in infection control (EPIC) study.

OBJECTIVE: Bloodstream infection (BSI) rates are used as comparative clinical performance indicators; however, variations in definitions and data-collection approaches make it difficult to compare and interpret rates. To determine the extent to which variation in indicator specifications affected infection rates and hospital performance rankings, we compared absolute rates and relative rankings of hospitals across 5 BSI indicators. DESIGN: Multicenter observational study. BSI rate specifications varied by data source (clinical data, administrative data, or both), scope (hospital wide or intensive care unit specific), and inclusion/exclusion criteria. As appropriate, hospital-specific infection rates and rankings were calculated by processing data from each site according to 2-5 different specifications. SETTING: A total of 28 hospitals participating in the EPIC study. PARTICIPANTS: Hospitals submitted deidentified information about all patients with BSIs from January through September 1999. RESULTS: Median BSI rates for 2 indicators based on intensive care unit surveillance data ranged from 2.23 to 2.91 BSIs per 1000 central-line days. In contrast, median rates for indicators based on administrative data varied from 0.046 to 7.03 BSIs per 100 patients. Hospital-specific rates and rankings varied substantially as different specifications were applied; the rates of 8 of 10 hospitals were both greater than and less than the mean. Correlations of hospital rankings among indicator pairs were generally low (rs=0-0.45), except when both indicators were based on intensive care unit surveillance (rs = 0.83). CONCLUSIONS: Although BSI rates seem to be a logical indicator of clinical performance, the use of various indicator specifications can produce remarkably different judgments of absolute and relative performance for a given hospital. Recent national initiatives continue to mix methods for specifying BSI rates; this practice is likely to limit the usefulness of such information for comparing and improving performance.

Knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors regarding piperacillin-tazobactam prescribing practices: results from a multicenter study.

We investigated knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors of prescribers concerning piperacillin-tazobactam use at 4 Emory University-affiliated hospitals. Discussions during focus groups indicated that the participants' perceived knowledge of clinical criteria for appropriate piperacillin-tazobactam use was inadequate. Retrospective review of medical records identified inappropriate practices. These findings have influenced ongoing interventions aimed at optimizing piperacillin-tazobactam use.

Infection surveillance and control programs in the Department of Veterans Affairs nursing home care units: a preliminary assessment.

A survey was conducted to assess the capacity and current practices of the infection surveillance and control programs at the Department of Veterans Affairs' 130 nursing home care units (VA NHCUs) covering a total of 15,006 beds in 2003. All 130 VA NHCUs responded to the survey, although not all NHCUs answered every question. The majority of the VA NHCUs provided specialized services that might pose increased risks of infection. For every 8 to 10 VA NHCU beds, there was 1 regular-pressure or negative-pressure infection control room available. Each VA NHCU had an active ongoing infection surveillance and control program managed by highly educated infection control personnel (ICP), of which 96% had a minimum of a bachelor degree. A median of 12 hours per week of these ICP efforts was devoted to the infection surveillance and control activities. The most frequently used surveillance methods were targeted surveillance for specific infections and for specific organisms. Most VA NHCUs conducted surveillance for antibiotic-resistant organisms. However, VA NHCUs did not use a uniform set of definitions for nosocomial infections for their infection surveillance and control purposes. We conclude that VA NHCUs have a considerable infrastructure and capacity for infection surveillance and control. This information can be used to develop a nationwide VA NHCU nosocomial infection surveillance system.

Monitoring patient safety in health care: building the case for surrogate measures.

BACKGROUND: Objective measurements are notably lacking for many adverse events in health care. A new approach to monitoring such events is based on the experience in measuring hospital-associated infections. DEVELOPING OBJECTIVE AND UNIVERSAL MEASURES: An essential tenet of the current goal of surveillance-focusing only on rigorously confirmed adverse events-is neither necessary nor achievable across the entire health care system. Efforts should be directed instead to creating objective measures of quality of care and of outcomes that can be used by all health care facilities. Adopting objective measures would be easier if health care was open to surrogate measures of important outcomes. Surrogate measures of interest for infection surveillance are used to identify objective, readily ascertained events that are sufficiently correlated with infections to provide useful information about organizations' infection rates. For example, the surgical site infection rate following coronary artery bypass appears to correlate closely enough with the proportion of patients who receive extended courses of inpatient antibiotics to be a useful indicator of a hospital's outcomes for the procedure. CONCLUSION: Developing clinically relevant process or surrogate measures that clinicians would use to improve patient outcomes is essential. These measures could be relevant not only to hospital-acquired infections but other health care-related adverse events that are relatively common yet require substantial resources to identify.

Decrease in Candida bloodstream infections in veterans in Atlanta.

Despite the recent focus on prevention of health care-associated infections, rates of Candida bloodstream infections in adults have remained unchanged until recently. We report a decline of Candida bloodstream infections, not explained by changes in broad-spectrum antibiotic use, but coinciding with infection control policies aimed at central venous catheter maintenance.

Overview of nosocomial infections caused by gram-negative bacilli.

We analyzed data from the National Nosocomial Infections Surveillance (NNIS) System from 1986-2003 to determine the epidemiology of gram-negative bacilli in intensive care units (ICUs) for the most frequent types of hospital-acquired infection: pneumonia, surgical site infection (SSI), urinary tract infection (UTI), and bloodstream infection (BSI). We analyzed >410,000 bacterial isolates associated with hospital-acquired infections in ICUs during 1986-2003. In 2003, gram-negative bacilli were associated with 23.8% of BSIs, 65.2% of pneumonia episodes, 33.8% of SSIs, and 71.1% of UTIs. The percentage of BSIs associated with gram-negative bacilli decreased from 33.2% in 1986 to 23.8% in 2003. The percentage of SSIs associated with gram-negative bacilli decreased from 56.5% in 1986 to 33.8% in 2003. The percentages pneumonia episodes and UTIs associated with gram-negative bacilli remained constant during the study period. The proportion of ICU pneumonia episodes associated with Acinetobacter species increased from 4% in 1986 to 7.0% in 2003 (P<.001, by the Cochran-Armitage chi2 test for trend). Significant increases in resistance rates were uniformly seen for selected antimicrobial-pathogen combinations. Gram-negative bacilli are commonly associated with hospital-acquired infections in ICUs. The proportion of Acinetobacter species associated with ICU pneumonia increased from 4% in 1986 to 7.0% in 2003.

Antibiotic use in US hospitals: quantification, quality measures and stewardship.

A majority of patients hospitalized in the US hospitals receive an antibiotic during their hospitalization. Furthermore, up to half of antibiotics prescribed in hospitals are inappropriate. In the setting of continued emergence of antibiotic-resistant pathogens and a limited pipeline of new antimicrobials, attention to optimizing antibiotic use in healthcare settings is essential. We review the measures of antibiotic consumption in the USA, the evolving metrics for comparing antibiotic use (known as benchmarking), trends in antibiotic use, the structure and outcome measures of Antimicrobial Stewardship Programs and interventions to optimize antimicrobial use.

Outbreak of Clostridium difficile infection in a long-term care facility: association with gatifloxacin use.

To determine the cause of an increase in the rate of Clostridium difficile-associated diarrhea (CDAD) in a long-term care facility (LTCF), we analyzed CDAD cases among LTCF patients from October 2001 through June 2002. CDAD cases were identified from review of all enzyme immunoassays positive for C. difficile toxin A. The increase coincided with a formulary change from levofloxacin to gatifloxacin. We performed a case-control study in which we randomly selected control subjects from 612 LTCF admissions during this period. Although we examined a variety of risk factors, logistic regression analysis only demonstrated associations between CDAD and use of clindamycin (P=.005) and gatifloxacin, the latter being associated with an increasing risk of CDAD with increasing duration of gatifloxacin therapy (P<.0001). We concluded that an outbreak of CDAD in an LTCF was associated with a formulary change from levofloxacin to gatifloxacin. The rate of CDAD in the LTCF decreased after a change back to levofloxacin.

Detection of postoperative surgical-site infections: comparison of health plan-based surveillance with hospital-based programs.

BACKGROUND: Review of health plan administrative data has been shown to be more sensitive than other methods for identifying postdischarge surgical-site infections (SSIs), but there has not been a direct comparison between this method and hospital-based surveillance for all infections, including those diagnosed before discharge. We compared these two methods for identifying SSIs following coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) procedures. METHODS: We studied 1,352 CABG procedures performed among members of one health plan from March 1993 through June 1997. Health plan administrative records were reviewed based on claims containing diagnoses or procedures suggestive of infection or outpatient dispensing of antibiotics appropriate for SSI. Hospital-based surveillance information was also reviewed. SSI rates were calculated based on the total events identified by either mechanism. RESULTS: Postdischarge information was reviewed for 328 (85%) of 388 procedures. SSIs were confirmed in 167 patients (13% overall risk of confirmed SSI; range, 3% to 14% in the 5 hospitals). The overall sensitivity of hospital-based surveillance was 49.7% (83 of 167), and that of health plan data was 71.8% (120 of 167). There was no significant difference among hospitals in the sensitivity of either surveillance mechanism. CONCLUSIONS: Surveillance based on health plan data identified more postoperative infections, including those occurring before discharge, than did hospital-based surveillance. Screening administrative data and pharmacy activity may be an important adjunct to SSI surveillance, allowing efficient comparison of hospital-specific rates. Interpretation of differences among hospitals' infection rates requires case mix adjustment and understanding of variations in hospitals' discharge diagnosis coding practices.