Occurrence of and risk factors for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus at a teaching hospital in Philadelphia

Manual medical record mining and data analysis were performed at a tertiary care university teaching hospital to establish the rate of occurrence of and risk factors for infection with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Patients with surgical site infections had the highest rate of MRSA infection, representing 59% of the MRSA infections recorded. The mortality rate in patients with relapsed MRSA was 45% (13 of 30), compared with no deaths in 149 new MRSA cases. The majority of deaths in patients with relapsed MRSA occurred in the intensive care unit. Copyright (C) 2012 by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.