Jan. 27th. I thought this was interesting!!

January 27th, 2009

An interesting format for testing and following patients who test positive for MRSA. All patients are either prescreened before hospital admission, or screened after admission with nasal swabs. If the results are positive, they are to follow a 5-day regime, which is to make it harder to cause infection and to spread to others. It is preferred that it start 5 days out from surgery, with the final day being the day of surgery. If surgery is delayed, they need to start over with the 5-day program.

After the treatment, another test does not need to be done unless the surgery has been delayed for more than two weeks.

They will be prescribed a 5-day course of antiseptic skincare products that can be used to tackle the MRSA organism. The products are:

A body wash/shampoo containing chlorhexadine.

An ointment to be applied into the nostrils, Bactroban.

A powder is sometimes prescribed, also containing chlorhexadine.

They may also be asked to change home bed linen and clothing, as the skin cells shed and collect in clothing, and MRSA is found on these cells.

These patients are included in the regular bay of patients, and special yellow aprons are used as well as a dynamap that is used for isolation patients. I was told that they have a very good infection control rate, and it seems like this system may be a significant contributor!!



I picked up my official hospital identification today, and have my next “rota”, or rather, schedule! It looks like I will be able to come to Portland the end of February!!!

Dow and I then spent the rest of the day being tourists, and took a transit boat up and down the Thames. It was a nice day until the sun went down, then got pretty chilly!! We ended up on the room early and making a spaghetti dinner.

One more note. The boat ride ended up at a stadium, O2. The headliners coming up are Brittany Spears and Tina Turner. Also, another big headliner at one of the theaters is one of the Osmonds in a play. He is getting a lot of media attention.

Until later!!!