Strict infection control practices have been implemented for health care visits by cystic fibrosis (CF) patients in an attempt to prevent transmission of important pathogens. This study used whole-genome sequencing (WGS) to determine strain relatedness and assess population dynamics of Staphylococcus aureus isolates from a cohort of CF patients as assessed by strain relatedness. A total of 311 S. aureus isolates were collected from respiratory cultures of 115 CF patients during a 22-month study period. Whole-genome sequencing was performed, and using single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis, phylogenetic trees were assembled to determine relatedness between isolates. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) phenotypes were predicted using PPFS2 and compared to the observed phenotype. The accumulation of SNPs in multiple isolates obtained over time from the same patient was examined to determine if a genomic molecular clock could be calculated. Pairs of isolates with Յ71 SNP differences were considered to be the "same" strain. All of the "same" strain isolates were either from the same patient or siblings pairs. There were 47 examples of patients being superinfected with an unrelated strain. The predicted MRSA phenotype was accurate in all but three isolates. Mutation rates were unable to be determined because the branching order in the phylogenetic tree was inconsistent with the order of isolation. The observation that transmissions were identified between sibling patients shows that WGS is an effective tool for determining transmission between patients. The observation that transmission only occurred between siblings suggests that Staphylococcus aureus acquisition in our CF population occurred outside the hospital environment and indicates that current infection prevention efforts appear effective.

Visitor restriction policies are meant to prevent health care-acquired viral infections; however, data on their efficacy in hospitalized children are limited. We report a 37% reduction in health care-acquired respiratory viral infections in a children's hospital following standardization of the visitation policy that limited the number of visitors during a patient's hospitalization.

Objective:To prevent environmental transmission of pathogens, hospital rooms housing patients on transmission-based precautions are cleaned extensively and disinfected with ultraviolet (UV) light. To do so consistently requires time and coordination, and these procedures must avoid patient flow delays and associated safety risks. We sought to improve room turnover efficiency to allow for UV disinfection.Design:A 60-day quality improvement and implementation project.Setting:A quaternary academic pediatric referral facility.Interventions:A multidisciplinary healthcare team participated in a 60-day before-and-after trial that followed the Toyota Production System Lean methodology. We used value-stream mapping and manual time studies to identify areas for improvement. Areas addressed included room breakdown, room cleaning, and wait time between cleaning and disinfection. Room turnover was measured as the time in minutes from a discharged patient exiting an isolation room to UV disinfection completion. Impact was measured using postintervention manual time studies.Results:Median room turnover decreased from 130 minutes (range, 93–294 minutes) to 65 minutes (range, 48–95 minutes; P < .0001). Other outcomes included decreased median time between room breakdown to cleaning start time (from 10 to 3 minutes; P = .004), room cleaning complete to UV disinfection start (from 36 to 8 minutes; P < .0001), and the duration of room cleaning and curtain changing (from 57 to 37 minutes; P < .0001).Conclusion:We decreased room turnover time by half in 60 days by decreasing times between and during routine tasks. Utilizing Lean methodology and manual time study can help teams understand and improve hospital processes and systems.

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OBJECTIVE To determine risk factors independent of length of stay (LOS) for Staphylococcus aureus acquisition in infants admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). DESIGN Retrospective matched case-case-control study. SETTING Quaternary-care referral NICU at a large academic children's hospital. METHODS Infants admitted between January 2014 and March 2016 at a level IV NICU who acquired methicillin resistant (MRSA) or susceptible (MSSA) S. aureus were matched with controls by duration of exposure to determine risk factors for acquisition. A secondary post hoc analysis was performed on the entire cohort of at-risk infants for risk factors identified in the primary analysis to further quantify risk. RESULTS In total, 1,751 infants were admitted during the study period with 199 infants identified as having S. aureus prevalent on admission. There were 246 incident S. aureus acquisitions in the remaining at-risk infant cohort. On matched analysis, infants housed in a single-bed unit were associated with a significantly decreased risk of both MRSA (P=.03) and MSSA (P=.01) acquisition compared with infants housed in multibed pods. Across the entire cohort, pooled S. aureus acquisition was significantly lower in infants housed in single-bed units (hazard ratio,=0.46; confidence interval, 0.34-0.62). CONCLUSIONS NICU bed design is significantly associated with S. aureus acquisition in hospitalized infants independent of LOS. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2018;39:46-52.