The Birmingham Children's Hospital, UK, have been using Cepheid's Xpert™ MRSA test, which runs on the GeneXpert® System, to implement a screening program for all patients being admitted to its Intensive Care Unit (ICU).

The results stated that 'obtaining an accurate and rapid result for MRSA is absolutely key at the emergency admission point in hospitals. For example, if a patient is critically ill and needs to be admitted to the ICU without delay, clinicians simply cannot afford to wait two to three days for a culture result to see whether the patient has MRSA.'

'It made sense to start the screening with ICU patients as they are the most susceptible to contracting the MRSA infection due to the bacteria most commonly gaining access to the body through open wounds, injections, catheters and IV sites,' said Dr. Jim Gray, Consultant Microbiologist at Birmingham Children's Hospital. 'It is vital to prevent MRSA from entering the ICU as it is extremely serious and potentially fatal for children who are already critically ill.'

According to the announcement, Cepheid's Xpert™ MRSA test has proven to be 100 percent accurate, allowing doctors at the hospital to identify MRSA carriers in under an hour. To validate the 100 percent accuracy rate of the on-demand results obtained using Xpert MRSA, all results so far have been verified with a traditional culture-based test, which takes up to three days for results. The hospital has already identified cases of MRSA that they would normally not have discovered prior to patient admission.

'This is another excellent example demonstrating the growing recognition of rapid molecular-based testing as the basis for best practice surveillance programs,' said Rob Koska, Cepheid's Senior Vice President of Worldwide Commercial Operations. 'As the leader in Healthcare Associated Infection (HAI) testing, Cepheid is committed to helping institutions worldwide implement the most effective programs that deliver proven results.'