FRIDAY, May 2, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- Dissemination of weekly findings of a bundle of interventions to hospital leadership and intensive care units correlates with a reduction in the rates of carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii in a large public hospital, according to a study published in the May issue of the American Journal of Infection Control.
L. Silvia Munoz-Price, M.D., from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, and colleagues conducted a quasiexperimental study at a 1,500-bed, public, teaching hospital. Weekly electronic communications were sent to the hospital leadership and intensive care units, that described, interpreted, and packaged the findings of the previous week's active surveillance cultures, environmental cultures, environmental disinfection, and hand cultures during January 2011 to March 2012. Based on these findings, action plans were shared with recipients.
The researchers identified 438 new acquisitions of carbapenem-resistant A. baumannii during 42 months and 1,103,900 patient-days. From baseline to postintervention periods, the rate of acquisition decreased hospital wide, from 5.13 to 1.93 per 10,000 patient-days (P < 0.0001). Decreased rates were seen in medical intensive care units (67.15 to 17.4; P < 0.0001) and in trauma intensive care units (55.9 to 14.71; P = 0.0004).
"Weekly and systematic dissemination of the findings of a bundle of interventions was successful in decreasing the rates of carbapenem-resistant A. baumannii across a large public hospital," the authors write.
One author disclosed financial ties to Ecolab.
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