Do you swab for MRSA upon admission?

[BittyBabyGrower]

We have started this in the past few months since Medicare is going to try to deny payment for nosocomial infections. We have found a small percentage of kids that come from DR with it! We had one with CA-MRSA that ended up with pneumonia and eventually needed a lobectomy because it was eating his lung! Now that is scary! Our OB is talking about swabbing moms now too.

What do you think or do?

[RainDreamer, BSN, RN]

Back when we did have kids with MRSA, they NEVER came out of isolation. Once they went into isolation, even after they tested negative, they stayed there until discharge.

[elizabells, BSN, RN]

Us too. New transfer admits are on contact until all cultures (MRSA, VRE, ESBL) come back negative. But if a baby is put on contact for cause, they stay on it until they go out the door.

[wensday, MSN, RN, APN, NP]

We swab all admissions (throat and rectal) whether they are admitted from delivery, postnates or another hospital. Every baby on the unit gets swabbed T&R on a Sunday night too. Recently we had high levels of certain bugs and so they were swabbed Sun and Wed nights. It makes sense to know what your babies have.

[cc_nurse]

We went through a very nasty bout with S.aureus last year and had to revamp all of our infection control procedures as a result. Now we swab every admission regardless of whether they are in-house or not, initially swabbed orifice and umbilicus, now just umbilicus. The cultures are repeated every Tuesday on every baby in the unit to monitor for new cases and then co-hort the positives. It seems to have made a difference in our morbidity.

[nsjbm2]

We swab all babies on admission then once a week thereafter.

[Mags4711, RN]

I work in an academic Level IIIc NICU (in case anyone is using these answers to benchmark) and we swab all admits, transfers and then weekly every Monday. We used to put all transfers into precautions on admission until negative but we don't any longer.

Once positive, they stay positive until they leave. Our entire medical center is going to start swabbing all admission and transfers in a couple of months.

[wee one rn]

I've worked in 2 level III/IV units (both do ECMO) and the only kids that get tested are the ones that we think have it. One unit has L&D and accepts transports and hyperbili kids from home as long as they are reaching transfusion level. The other is a Peds hospital that accepts transfers and kids from home up to 30 days old.

[ilstu99]

We swab all of our admissions, in-house and transfers. Then we swab every Sunday after that.