CDC: Positive Deviance Helps Reduce MRSA Infections

We've written several times before here on the blog about MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) infections, their impact on lives and on hospitals, and the Pioneer-funded work of the Plexus Institute to explore "positive deviance" as a method to cut a hospital's MRSA infection rate. 

This past Saturday, at a special late-breaker session during the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America's 19th Annual Scientific Meeting, RWJF and Plexus announced the results of a study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of whether the positive deviance approach does, in fact, work on MRSA.

We were thrilled to see that the answer is a resounding yes: significant reductions in MRSA incidence ranging from 26 to 62 percent at participating hospitals.  You can read more about the study and its results here.

And because a picture is worth a thousand words, you might also want to see how CBS News reported the story on Sunday night: