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March, 2008:  A newly released study by Robicsek and colleagues in the Annuals of Internal Medicine (March 18, 2008), describes the impact of a universal MRSA screening program for patients newly admitted to the hospital. The intervention was associated with an impressive hospital wide 70% reduction in hospital-associated MRSA infections. -- Click Here to View Report.

JAMA recently published a study ( Harbarth et. al. 2008 )last week that allegedly showed that screening patients for MRSA was not an effective prevention strategy.  However there were severe flaws in the handling of identified patients.    Editorial Analysis by JAMA

Analysis by Consumer Reports found:  "Another study published recently in the Journal of the American Medical Association concluded that MRSA screening of surgical patients was not effective for preventing surgical infections. However, this study did not measure the impact on the spread of infections throughout the hospital, rather it only measured infections among the surgical patients screened. The study revealed that the results of 31 percent of the patients' tests were not received prior to their surgery, thus negating the benefit of screening. Further, the study actually found those patients who were pre-screened and who got results prior to surgery, were able to receive the appropriate preventive antibiotics for MRSA and to "decolonize" prior to surgery. In this group, no infections occurred."