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.

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