Good news, bad news

Here’s a nice “good news, bad news” report by Becky Miller and colleagues from DICON (the Duke infection control network). First the bad news: Clostridium difficile has now replaced MRSA as the most common HAI in this 39 hospital network in the southeastern United States. The good news? This development is driven largely by a steady and substantial decline in healthcare-associated MRSA infections between 2005-2009. Check it out:

We’ve discussed this trend before, a trend documented by CDC investigators in the NHSN and EIN programs, and confirmed in the VA system as well. The challenge now is to find a way to make the C. difficile trend line resemble that for MRSA….