Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus colonization and risk of subsequent infection in critically ill children: importance of preventing nosocomial methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus transmission.

Background: Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) colonization is a predictor of subsequent infection in hospitalized adults. The risk of subsequent MRSA infections in hospitalized children colonized with MRSA is unknown.

Methods: Children admitted to an academic medical center's pediatric intensive care unit between March 2007 and March 2010 were included in the study.

Risk factors for positive admission surveillance cultures for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and vancomycin-resistant enterococci in a neurocritical care unit.

Objective: Hospitals are under increasing pressure to perform active surveillance cultures for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus. This study aimed to identify patients at low and high risk for positive admission surveillance cultures for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus in a neurocritical care unit using readily ascertainable historical factors.

Design: Before/after study with nested case/control study.

History of the development of sleep medicine in the United States.

Sleep Medicine has only recently been recognized as a specialty of medicine. Its development is based on an increasing amount of knowledge concerning the physiology of sleep, circadian biology and the pathophysiology of sleep disorders. This review chronicles the major advances in sleep science over the past 70 years and the development of the primary organizations responsible for the emergence of Sleep Medicine as a specialty, sleep disorders as a public health concern and sleep science as an important area of research.

Effect of shifting costs to patients on specialty evaluation for sleep disorders.

Objective: To determine whether the introduction of out-of-pocket expenses to medical center employees would lead to decreased use of sleep disorder services.

Patients And Methods: We retrospectively analyzed and compared the clinical and medical accounting data from visits by Mayo Clinic employees to the Sleep Disorders Center from January 1 to March 31, 2003, with that of January 1 to March 31, 2004, le, before and after a January 2004 increase in co-payments for evaluation and testing.

Results: The total number of new patients evaluated in the first quarters of 2003 and 2004 was similar (113 vs 119; P = .