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%.