A Risk Assessment for Multidrug-Resistant Organisms (MDROs)

• 7/2/2010
• Author: Learning Community Administrator
• Category: Learning Community Blog
• 9799 Views
• 0 Comments
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You know that MDROs are a problem. But how do you accurately measure the effect of MDROs in your organization? A method used by many organizations to evaluate MDROs is a risk assessment. This involves assessing the number of infections caused by MDROs and also the processes that can lead to or prevent the development and transmission of MDROs among patients in your organization.

Doing the risk assessment includes the following:
• Carefully assessing the incidence or prevalence of MDROs in your organization. This can be accomplished with the help of the cultures and antibiograms from the laboratory staff and infection surveillance data from the infection prevention and control team.
• Determining the effectiveness of surveillance procedures for identifying MDROs and avoiding duplicate counts of infections. Some organizations may assess colonization along with infection, depending on their policy for surveillance cultures. Organizations may want to consider the incidence of MDRO infections by special populations, clinical programs, or services.
• Understanding physician and nurse knowledge of antibiotics and antibiotic resistance.
• Clarifying the status of an antibiotic stewardship philosophy and program, which is critical to assessing and minimizing MDROs.
• Evaluating communication strategies about antibiotics and MDROs and antibiotic resistance
• Assessing your policies and procedures for preventing MDRO transmission as well as your organization’s compliance with your policies and procedures.

Questions:
• Has your organization done a comprehensive risk assessment for MDROs and established priorities to prevent or reduce MDROs?
• Who participated in the risk assessment? Were they the people who influence practice?
• What did you find were your vulnerabilities?
• How are you using the risk assessment to improve practice?

Let us know how you are doing with your risk assessment process.