Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

SUN EDITORIAL:

Impressive results

Medical community should pay attention to VA’s work fighting infections

Over the past few years, Veterans Affairs hospitals across the country have taken an aggressive approach to combating potentially deadly infections.

As The New York Times reported Wednesday, when patients come in, they are screened for infection. Those who test positive for the notorious methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, bacterium, which is difficult to treat, are isolated. Anyone working with those patients is required to wear gloves and gowns, and other precautions are taken.

A study of 153 VA hospitals, published last week in The New England Journal of Medicine, showed the effort was paying off — there was a 62 percent drop in the rate of MRSA infections in the hospitals’ intensive care units over a 32-month period. Other areas of the hospitals showed a 45 percent drop during the same period.

Dr. Rajiv Jain, a VA official who was the study’s primary author, said he thinks other hospitals could decrease infections if they follow the VA’s lead. Jain said he has seen evidence that testing every patient admitted for infection has worked elsewhere, pointing to a hospital that followed the VA model.

But opinion in the medical community is mixed. A separate study of infection control in other hospitals’ intensive care units, which was published in the same edition of the medical journal as the VA research, questioned whether testing every patient for infection is necessary or cost-effective. The two studies have set off a debate among infectious disease experts about the best approach to deal with MRSA.

The experts may argue about ways to deal with diseases, but the VA’s success is impressive. Dr. John Jernigan of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told the Times that the VA study showed that “hospitals can make a difference, and that’s important because it shifts the conversation from if it can be done to how it might best be done.”

At the VA, hospitals made a significant investment. They hired an infection prevention coordinator and a laboratory technician, and they increased spending on equipment, gloves and supplies. But Jain said one of the most important factors was the cultural shift at the hospitals that came as result.

“Testing every patient brings the infection control initiative into the thinking of the entire staff,” he said. “The staff takes more ownership, not only of hand hygiene and other precautions but also of doing whatever is necessary to prevent the spread of these infections.”

Millions of people pick up infections in American hospitals every year, which not only adds to their pain and suffering but also increases the cost of health care.

The Obama administration last week announced a campaign to reduce preventable illnesses and injuries, which cost billions of dollars, that patients suffer in the course of their treatment. The administration’s plan is admirable, as it will bring hospitals, community groups and medical professionals together to find ways to improve.

The medical community should make fighting infections a priority and should be encouraged by the VA’s study. It shows what can be done with diligent effort.

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