WHONET

Hi, I have a question, When I use the frames MRSA, VRE, ESBL and ciprofloxacin resistance if I have create the microorganism dictionaries. Because I don´t know the aplications of those frames

Hi Andrés,

Thanks for the message.

As you have seen, there are new features in BacLink for MRSA, VRE, and ESBL "flags".  On the screen for defining organism codes, there are also flags for "inducible clindamycin resistance" and "beta-lactamase".  There is no flag for "ciprofloxacin resistance', so I am uncertain to where you are referring for this point. 

The purpose of these organism flags is to solve a simple problem.  For example, many hospitals have an organism called "MRSA".  WHONET does not have MRSA as an organism.  Rather, we call this organism "Staphylococcus aureus" rather than focusing on the methicillin resistance characteristic.  This  facilitates analysis of all S. aureus (including the MRSA, VRSA, or other S. aureus) and comparison of results between hospitals. 

So BacLink will call your MRSA as "Staphylococcus aureus", but we don't want to lose the fact that the organism is methicillin-resistant.  In prior versions of BacLink, you could distinguish MRSA in two ways in WHONET:  1) using the antibiotic results for oxacillin, cefoxitin, etc. or 2) using the "Local organism code" column.

In this new version of BacLink there is now a third way -- using the MRSA flag.  If you have an organism code "MRSA", you should call the organism "Staphylococcus aureus", but you can now change the MRSA drop-down box to "Positive".  This information will then be saved to your organism dictionary.  The next time that you convert data, then "MRSA" will be saved as "Organism = sau" and "MRSA = +".  You can then use the MRSA column during data analysis with WHONET.

In a similar way, some laboratories have a code for "ESBL-producing E. coli".  In BacLink, you should match this to "Organism = eco" and "ESBL = +".

I hope that this answers your question.  If not, please let us know, and we will get back to you.

Best regards, this time from Suriname.

        John

Hi Andres,

Certainly feel free to share your comments and suggestions in this forum. 

Regarding possible errors or bugs, please verify that they still persist in the most recent version of WHONET as it is possible that the issue has already been addressed and resolved.

      John