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D.C. health department to track CRE in local facilities

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The District of Columbia Hospital Association and OpGen recently announced their participation in a citywide evaluation led by the Washington, D.C., health department that will assess the prevalence of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae in health care facilities, according to a press release.

The CDC-funded HARP-DC study is the first in the D.C. area to proactively combat CRE, the release said. Researchers will test patients admitted to each participating hospital and skilled nursing home for 3 days to identify patient care units that are at the greatest risk for CRE transmission.

The district’s health department contracted OpGen to perform multidrug-resistant organism (MDRO) testing using its set of Acuitas MDRO Tests and Acuitas Lighthouse MDRO Management System. The Department of Forensic Sciences-Public Health Laboratory will provide logistical support and sequence isolates recovered from cultures.

The study was designed to better understand the prevalence of CRE so that appropriate safety measures are implemented to prevent transmission, Robert Malson, president of the District of Columbia Hospital Association (DCHA), said in the release.

“We know that individuals in our local health care facilities are harboring CRE and are unknowingly at risk,” Malson said. “At this point, while CRE is still a rare event, it can spread outside the gut quickly, particularly in people who are taking antibiotics for other ailments or whose health is in a [compromised] or weakened state.”

According to the release, 40% to 80% of patients who develop these drug-resistant infections will die. In early August, CDC researchers said they observed “a tipping point” due to the increasing number of bacteria that no longer respond to antibiotics.

“We issued a call-to-action in a recent report, asking for state and local health departments to safeguard against the spread of multidrug-resistant infections by working with local health care facilities,” Denise Cardo, MD, director of CDC’s Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, said in the release. “One way to improve the local understanding of resistance is to assess the number of patients with specific drug-resistant infections. The HARP-DC study is an example of a public-private partnership that can improve our knowledge about resistant infections in the nation’s capital through the combined efforts of the city’s health departments, the DCHA and OpGen.”

Health care facilities that are participating in this study include BridgePoint Hospital, Children’s National Medical Center, George Washington University Hospital, Howard University Hospital, Providence Hospital, MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, MedStar Washington Hospital Center, Sibley Memorial Hospital and United Medical Center.