New tool to combat MRSA infections in hospitals

Cardinal Health, a global provider of products and services that improve the safety and productivity of health care, today announced a new service to help hospitals combat methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections that are responsible for an estimated 94,000 life-threatening conditions and 18,650 deaths annually in the U.S.

Cardinal Health is deploying a new MRSA Scorecard to hospitals that monitor infections using the company's MedMined services. The new scorecard provides a hospital-wide view of MRSA, allowing infection control practitioners to track the types and locations of MRSA infections throughout the hospital. The MRSA Scorecard uses Cardinal Health's patent-pending Nosocomial Infection Marker (NIM) methodology, which allows hospitals to identify patients who have tested positive for the bacteria and distinguish between those who likely acquired the infection in the hospital. Through this real-time view, hospitals can rapidly dispatch resources to limit the spread of infections.

The MRSA scorecard is available to all hospitals using MedMined services and will be offered free of charge for four months through a sponsorship program from BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company).

"The MRSA Scorecard will help hospitals make evidence-based decisions about the most appropriate way to respond to MRSA in their facilities," said Patrick Hymel, MD, vice president and medical director for Cardinal Health's MedMined services. "This new tool enables a comprehensive and consistent approach to preventing these dangerous infections."

Cardinal Health provides nearly 250 major U.S. hospitals with automated electronic infection prevention surveillance and management systems designed to identify health care associated infections (HAIs) in real time, enabling immediate interventions to prevent subsequent adverse patient events.

HAIs affect one in 20 patients admitted each year. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), eradicating MRSA has become a national priority -- one that requires all health care facilities and agencies to assume responsibility. A recent national survey done by the Association for Professions in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) indicates an estimated 46 per 1,000 patients are either infected or colonized with MRSA annually, a rate about 10 times greater than previous MRSA estimates. As a result, most U.S. hospitals are in the process of designing and implementing aggressive infection prevention programs designed to stop the spread of MRSA in their health care institutions.