We just started using Chromagar and it seems to be a success. The validation
of it vs blood agar screening showed very good correlation and actually the
Chromagar picked one up that the blood agar missed. Our TAT was reduced
since we can now see the suspicious colony after overnight incubation, do a
Gram's stain and latex coag and report it out as MRSA positive.

Our infection control nurse is mounting a campaign to eradicate MRSA or at
least get it to manageable levels. Our sensitivity tracking shows that 60%
of our Staph aureus isolates are MRSA. So all incoming patients who have any
risk factor for MRSA or VRE are being screened.

However, it seems that even a 1 day TAT is not good enough and we just saw a
demo of a PCR method that can get a result in minutes. Of course it didn't
address that we don't have staff to handle the testing, it would be batched
to run only once a day and not on weekends or nights. Thus the TAT would be
about the same as the culture. (I'm sure all the nurse heard was that the
results would be available in minutes!)