Typically, MRSA presents itself as an eruption on the skin. But, in hospitals, clincis and surgery centers, as well as rehabilitation centers and nursing homes, MRSA can contribute to infections in the bloodstream, infected surgical sites and even pneumonia. MRSA can even be fatal.

How is MRSA spread? In institutional and medical settings, MRSA is usually spread when somebody touches an infected wound and then has contact with an uninfected person without first washing hands and/or donning protective gloves. MRSA can also be spread in places where people are in close quarters, including dormitories and even gyms and fitness clubs.

Diagnosing MRSA: In order to definitively diagnose MRSA, the infected site has to be swabbed and then sent to the laboratory to be investigated.

What Can Each of Us Do to Protect Ourselves? 

• Practice good hygiene.
• Check your hands for cuts. Keep cuts covered with bandages until they heal.
• Wash your hands often, in warm soapy water and for enough time (sing “Happy Birthday” twice each time you wash!)
• Shower and wash hands thoroughly after going to gyms or fitness centers.
• Monitor any new sores or cuts. If they are not healing properly, seek medical attention. Ask if your infected site should be tested for MRSA.
• Be particularly cautious if you know you have been in close contact with someone with MRSA.

Preventing  Health Care Workers From Transmitting MRSA: If you or a loved one are a patient or resident of a care facility, you may want to monitor the staff on your own and be sure that they follow the protocol for prevention of MRSA and other pathogens. Good hygiene practices include:

• Separation of soiled laundry and quick removal from infected sources.
• Washing hands thoroughly before touching each new patient (you may ask your doctor to wash his or her hands in front of you before they examine you; it’s not rude.)
• Cleaning and disinfecting surfaces that have been utilized by multiple people: phones and TV remotes, door handles, toilet seats, etc.
• Cleaning equipment thoroughly that will be in contact with multiple patients (like stethoscopes).
• Utilizing cleaning and disinfectant products that are designed to eradicate staph infections.
• Placing patients with MRSA in single rooms, if possible. If impossible, they should only be placed with other residents who are at low risk for acquiring MRSA. Dialysis patients and chemotherapy patients with MRSA should be placed as far as possible from other patients.

In an emergency, we don’t always have the luxury to choose the hospital we want. But, when we are scheduling a non-emergency procedure, we have many factors to consider: where our doctor has privileges, what facility is convenient for friends and family, what the insurance implications of hospital decisions are.

Another factor you might want to consider in choosing a hospital is the safety record of the hospital in terms of hospital-borne infections. You should also be mindful of how many patients each nurse is required to care for; when this ratio is too high, infections are often the result as antibiotics get delayed, sources of infection are missed and supervision of sanitary conditions suffer.

There is good news and bad news.

The bad news is this: unlike 31 states and the District of Columbia, the state of Michigan does not require Michigan hospitals to report their infection rates to the public. Other states actually allow a comparison of these infection rates. Now there is a caveat: just because you can compare hospitals does not mean that you can judge a hospital solely by its infection rates. A small rural hospital may not have the exposure to certain infectious diseases that a large hospital that handles complicated cases and often admits sicker patients does.

The good news: the data is still available; you won’t find it on the hospital’s website, you won’t find it on a state of Michigan website, but you can find at least some information on the Medicare website entitled “Hospital Compare”. This information reports the experiences of Medicare patients, so this group is older than the nation at large, with possibly more pre-existing conditions, but it is the only data accessible to Michigan residents about their own hospitals.

Hospital Compare has data on 137 Michigan hospitals, many of which report no infections. The hospital-borne infections that Hospital Compare tracks include:

• Staphylococcus aureus (or MRSA)
• Central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI)
• Catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI)
• Surgical site infections from colon surgery
• Surgical site infections from hysterectomy
• Clostridium difficile (or C.diff)

When you go to medicare.gov/hospitalcompare, you will be asked either for the name of a hospital or for your location. You can then choose to compare hospitals.

The most important section of the website occurs when you click on a hospital’s profile. In the next screen, you can choose among lots of tabs: Medicare information, patient surveys, etc., but for our purposes, click on “Readmissions, complications and Deaths”. This tab will then give you even more data including readmission data and surgical complications. You will see a tab for “healthcare associated infections”. You will discover many highly reputable hospitals right here in Michigan with MRSA infections that are twice the national average!

It is not easy to track down hospital-borne infections, but it is not impossible.

In future posts, we will discuss some of these specific infections, how they can be prevented and how to know if you need to contact an attorney who specializes in medical malpractice.