Nursing Home Patients Tested for Superbugs

A study of adults admitted to Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins Hospital show those who lived in nursing homes were likely to be infected with drug-resistant bacteria.

The study was intended to grasp the extent of one of the lesser known hospital superbugs — multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter.

Results showed 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.

As a result of the study, Johns Hopkins Hospital officials will begin this summer to test all patients who have spent time in a nursing home, looking for drug-resistant bacteria at the outset of their hospital admission, while also using isolation precautions until the test results are known.

The study was presented Monday in Baltimore during a meeting of the Society of Health Care Epidemiology.