Drug-Resistant “SuperBugs” Are a Problem in Nursing Homes
By nursing-home-lawyer | April 22, 2007
Here’s a cautionary story about life in nursing homes.
Most-at-risk Nursing Home Residents To Be Tested For “Superbugs”
A Johns Hopkins study of adult patients admitted to The Johns Hopkins Hospital showed that patients who resided in nursing homes or other kinds of long-term care facilities at any time within the last six months were far more likely than other adult patients to carry or be infected with a drug-resistant superbug.The study, conducted over a four-month period in 2006, was intended to grasp the extent of one of the lesser known hospital superbugs, multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter (MDR-ACIN), and control its spread among the hospital’s most vulnerable adult patients. More than 1,600 were screened within 24 hours of admission to any one of five intensive care units where previous infections had been recorded.
Results showed that patients who had been in nursing homes, either admitted to Hopkins directly from a long-term care facility or transferred from home or another community hospital, were 12 times more likely than other patients to be carriers of the bacterium. Rates were even higher, 22 times, among those patients who were wheelchair- or bed-bound because their legs were paralyzed.
As a result of the study, The Johns Hopkins Hospital will begin this summer to test all patients who have spent time in a nursing home, looking for drug-resistant bacteria at the outset of their hospital admission, while also using isolation precautions until their test results are known.
Unless these test results are negative for superbugs, patients are treated as potential carriers. They will receive care only in designated, confined treatment spaces or separate rooms. During treatments, hospital staff are required to wear disposable gloves, masks and gowns, and clean equipment and furniture with strong disinfectants.
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Topics: Boston Nursing Homes |
