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Worker concerns cited in HIC survey findings

Worker concerns cited in HIC survey findings

But no VRE infections reported in workers

Highlights of a recent Hospital Infection Control fax-back survey on antibiotic resistance issues and health care workers are summarized as follows:

1. Are you finding that health care workers at your facility are becoming more concerned about being colonized or infected with drug-resistant bacteria?

Yes: 77%

No: 23%

2. What are the pathogens of major concern to health care workers at your facility?

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA): 85%

Vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE ): 44%*

Others written in by ICPs included: Clostridium difficile, vancomycin-intermediate resistant S. aureus, multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, penicillin-resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae, resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and group A streptococcus.

3. Within approximately the last two years, have any health care workers become infected with MRSA at your facility?

Yes: 29%

No: 71%

4. Have any health care workers become colonized with MRSA at your facility?

Yes: 32%

No: 68%

5. Have you adopted an MRSA decolonization protocol to permit infected or colonized health care workers to continue working or return to work?

Yes: 22%

No: 78%

6. Within approximately the last two years, have any health care workers become infected with VRE at your facility?

Yes: 0%

No: 100%

7. Have any health care workers become colonized with VRE at your facility?

Yes: 2%

No: 98%

8. Have you adopted a VRE decolonization protocol to permit infected or colonized health care workers to continue working or return to work?

Yes: 4%

No: 96%

* Some respondents checked both MRSA and VRE, thus the total exceeds 100%.