Reducing hospital-acquired infections is a top priority for all medical providers. To better protect the community, St. Luke’s Hospital has installed a lab analyzer that quickly detects if patients are carrying the staph bacteria known as MRSA, which stands for Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus.
Thanks to a grant provided by the Polk County Community Foundation, St. Luke’s Hospital recently purchased a LightCycler 2.0 MRSA Analyzer.
“A ‘Super Bug’ that defies the usual course of antibiotic treatment, MRSA is a type of staph bacteria that is resistant to certain antibiotics including methicillin and other more common antibiotics such as oxacillin, penicillin and amoxicillin,” explains Lori Rothell, RN, infection preventionist at St. Luke’s Hospital. “In the community, most MRSA infections are skin infections; however, more severe or potentially life-threatening MRSA infections occur most frequently among patients in healthcare settings. Since people can carry the organism/bacteria with no clinical signs or symptoms of infection, a MRSA analyzer will enable St. Luke’s Hospital to quickly detect if patients are carrying the bacteria within hours of their admission to the hospital.”