MRSA Infection Rate Doubles at Teaching Hospitals: Study

The number of antibiotic-resistant staph infections suffered by individuals at hospitals used to train new healthcare professionals has doubled over the last five years according to new research. 

In a study published earlier this month in the medical journal Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, researchers from the University Chicago of Medicine found that while methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections were declining in other areas of U.S. healthcare, their rates were increasing in so-called teaching hospitals or academic hospitals.

MRSA infections, which are resistant to treatment by penicillin-based antibiotics, have accounted for more than 60 percent of hospital staph infections in recent years. The CDC reports that about 126,000 hospital MRSA infections occur each year, resulting in about 5,000 deaths. However, some researchers suggest that the number of deaths from MRSA in the U.S. is closer to 20,000 annually.

While the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that MRSA rates were dropping overall in recent years, teaching hospitals appear to be the exception. This new study found that in 2003, about 21 out of every 1,000 patients at a teaching hospital were hospitalized due to hospital-acquired MRSA. By 2008, that number had climbed to about 42 in every 1,000 patients.

Researchers indicate that the number of MRSA infection hospitalizations outpaced the number of patients hospitalized for AIDS and the flu combined in 2006, 2007 and 2008.

There are two “families” of MRSA strains, community-acquired and hospital-acquired. Most of the infections detected in the study appeared to be community-acquired, which is generally assumed to mean that the infection was acquired in the community and not in the hospital. But the fact that the rate of infections is going up at teaching hospitals and down at other hospitals could indicate that community-acquired infections are spreading between patients in teaching hospitals due to a lack of sufficient infection control measures.

The researchers used a database that contained data from 90 percent of U.S. non-profit academic hospitals. The data used billing codes hospitals sent to insurance companies, and the researchers warned that MRSA infections are often underreported in that data.