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How one facility reduced MRSA and saved money

Quality Improvement Monitor, March 28, 2008

For those hospitals that think screening every patient for methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is too expensive, too time-consuming, and too onerous, consider this: In one year, Evanston (IL) Northwestern Healthcare system, the first in the country to start swabbing every patient for MRSA, dramatically reduced nosocomial infections and saved money.

"Not only are you saving the hospital lots of money, you're saving the patients lots of suffering," says Donna M. Hacek, MT, ASCP, technical specialist of clinical microbiology and molecular epidemiology at Evanston. "It's a good patient safety thing. That was kind of the package we needed to sell, and the CEOs bought into it."

Evanston Northwestern Healthcare set a goal of reducing the MRSA rate within two years at its three hospitals.

But after just 12 months, the staff decided to take a peek at the data. The results were startling. In the first year, the hospital saw an 80% reduction of its bloodstream infection rate with MRSA.

"We were just floored," Hacek says. "We had already met our goal within one year instead of two, and we were really happy to see that."

Access the full story in the March issue of Quality Improvement Report; access is free for subscribers, nonsubscribers can purchase a copy of the story for $10.

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