MRSA infections are often picked up while patients are in the hospital being treated for something else. When they are being treated for an industrial injury, the infection can become a compensable consequence claim. Symptoms of a staph infection include small red bumps on the skin, which can turn into more severe sores. When the bacteria spread past the skin, they may cause life-threatening infections in bones, organs and the bloodstream.

Hospitals and other healthcare providers have been making a big push to cut down on transmission of MRSA inside their facilities. Reducing methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in both healthcare and community settings continues to be a high priority for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency is engaged in several short- and long-term surveillance (infection tracking) projects that involve collaboration with partners including health departments, individual hospitals, and academic medical centers, among others. Understanding the burden of MRSA – how much is occurring, where it is happening, and how it is being spread – is essential for developing effective prevention programs and measuring their impact.

In 2010, encouraging results from a CDC study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that invasive (life-threatening) MRSA infections in healthcare settings are declining. Invasive MRSA infections that began in hospitals declined 28% from 2005 through 2008. Decreases in infection rates were even bigger for patients with bloodstream infections. In addition, the study showed a 17% drop in invasive MRSA infections that were diagnosed before hospital admissions (community onset) in people with recent exposures to healthcare settings.

This study (or report) complements data from the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) that found rates of MRSA bloodstream infections occurring in hospitalized patients fell nearly 50% from 1997 to 2007.

In newer CDC studies reported in Reuters Health, researchers analyzed 2011 data on infections from selected counties in nine U.S. states, and compared it to a 2005 CDC report on MRSA incidence. Overall, the number of serious MRSA infections diagnosed while people were in the hospital fell by 54 percent between 2005 and 2011 – from about 9.7 infections per 100,000 people to about 4.5 per 100,000 people. The incidence of serious infections diagnosed while people were home but after being in contact with a healthcare setting also decreased, by about 28 percent, during that time – from 21 infections per 100,000 people to about 15 infections per 100,000 people.

While the new study cannot explain why infection rates are dropping, it’s likely attributable, in part, to hospital efforts to reduce the spread of infections. “It’s also possible that there has been evolution of these strains and they’re less invasive,” Dr. Franklin Lowy, from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York who wrote an editorial accompanying the new study in JAMA Internal Medicine, said.