Hospitals Explore a New Approach to MRSA and VRE: Eliminating Contact Precautions

Amid mounting evidence that contact precautions may not be necessary to prevent the transmission of certain infections, experts are calling for hospitals to reconsider what has been a staple of infection prevention guidelines for decades.

In the most recent study, published in the July issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology (ICHE), researchers at the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA) Health found that discontinuing contact precautions for patients with MRSA and vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE), coupled with the expanded use of chlorhexidine gluconate, had a negligent impact on the rate of infections.

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