Antibiotic-resistant infections are common today. Now modeling experiments show that if the public health authorities and healthcare facilities in a given region work together they could reduce the number of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) infections by nearly 75% in 5 years. No one facility can stop this because the outbreak moves across facilities around a community.
When one facility is preventing infections but a second isn't, transferring patients can reinfect the facility that was at first clear of infections. Lack of coordination puts patients at higher risk. With effective action now, including nationwide antibiotic stewardship efforts and interventions to prevent spread of antibiotic-resistant infections, an estimated 619,000 infections caused by three problematic antibiotic-resistant [healthcare-associated infections] or [Clostridium difficile infections], and…
