Association Between Contact Precautions and Transmission of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus in Veterans Affairs Hospitals

In this cohort study, transmission models were fit to data on 8.4 million surveillance tests from 5.6 million admissions to 108 VA hospitals between 2008 and 2017. The estimated reduction in transmissibility of MRSA associated with contact precautions was 47%.

In this large-scale study, contact precautions were associated with a 2-fold reduction in MRSA transmission, which suggests that the MRSA Prevention Initiative was associated with the decline in acquisition rates in VA hospitals.