BACKGROUND The effect of hospital-acquired infection with Clostridium difficile on length of stay in hospital is not yet fully understood. We determined the independent impact of hospital-acquired infection with C. difficile on length of stay in hospital. METHODS We conducted a retrospective observational cohort study of admissions to hospital between July 1, 2002, and Mar. 31, 2009, at a sin...

The emergence of drug-resistant strains of bacteria is an increasing threat to society, especially in hospital settings. Many antibiotics that were formerly effective in combating bacterial infections in hospital patients are no longer effective because of the evolution of resistant strains, which compromises medical care worldwide. In this article, we formulate a two-level population model to ...

BACKGROUND As a cost-saving measure, an increasing number of hospitals allow personnel to launder their uniforms, lab coats, and operating room scrubs at home. With rising nosocomial infection rates and increasing levels of multidrug-resistant bacteria in hospital settings, uniform contamination may be an environmental factor in the spread of infection. METHODS We quantified the number and id...

A comparison was made of the performance of a newly established anaerobic section of a clinical laboratory and the routine diagnostic section in terms of isolation and identification of anaerobic bacteria. Both sections attempted to isolate obligate anaerobes from the same clinical specimens which were not transported in anaerobic containers. Anaerobic and diagnostic sections isolated anaerobes...

Hospital information systems (HIS) alerts restricting repeat Clostridium difficile PCR ordering by physicians in patients with a prior result within 7 days eliminated 91% of repeat tests, from 14.5% (282/1,949) repeats preintervention to 1.3% (135/10,285) postintervention. HIS alerting is an effective, targeted, patient-specific tool for improving the quality and utilization of C. difficile res...

OBJECTIVE Both asymptomatic and symptomatic Clostridium difficile carriers contribute to new colonizations and infections within a hospital, but current control strategies focus only on preventing transmission from symptomatic carriers. Our objective was to evaluate the potential effectiveness of methods targeting asymptomatic carriers to control C. difficile colonization and infection (CDI) ra...

Ralstonia mannitolilytica, a Gram-negative aerobic bacterium, is an opportunistic human pathogen that is becoming more common in cases of nosocomial infections. We report for the first time the whole-genome sequence analysis of R. mannitolilytica strain MRY14-0246, which carries the intrinsic OXA-443/OXA-22-like and OXA-444/OXA-60-like β-lactamase genes and is resistant to meropenem.