By Healthcare Facilities Today

Regional patient registries may help track the spread of antibiotic-resistant infections between health care facilities, according to a Clinical Infectious Diseases article posted on the Infectious Disease News website.

According to the Clinical Infectious Diseases researchers, most studies on methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus and vancomycin-resistant enterococci come from single institutions, but interfacility spread within regions is gaining recognition.

“Antibiotic resistance is a regional problem,” Abel Kho, MD, MS, assistant professor at Northwestern University, and affiliated scientist at the Regenstrief Institute, Indianapolis, told Infectious Disease News. “To address this, sharing infection data can enable coordinated regional infection control efforts.”

Kho and his colleagues developed an antimicrobial-resistance tracking system to register all MRSA and VRE cases and determine when the patients were admitted to any regional health care facility. 

The registry included 17 hospitals and associated clinics in the Indianapolis area. From June 2007 to June 2010, email alerts were sent to hospitals where a patient previously reported as infected or colonized with MRSA or VRE were admitted to a study hospital.

Read the article.