The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Plexus Institute today announced the results of a Positive Deviance program, trialed to see the effects it had on MRSA rates. The story caught my eye because I’ve written a couple of stories about Positive Deviance for Briefings on Patient Safety in 2007 and 2008, and the idea always struck me as something so simple, yet so empowering. Positive Deviance solicits ideas for solving a problem from those who deal with that problem often and may think of a solution that might be considered “out of the norm,” but one that works. It’s an approach that attempts to gather behavioral change from those frontline workers who solve problems with the same resources as their peers.

Using Positive Deviance to lower MRSA rates has succeeded, as it was announced at the annual scientific meeting of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America this past weekend. The study began in 2006 and introduced the idea of Positive Deviance into three hospitals from different parts of the country. Each hospital was to use Positive Deviance to help carry out the following three actions:

screening all patients admitted to a pilot unit for MRSA isolating all patients who tested positive rigorously adhering to hand hygiene and contact precautions A team from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed the data from these facilities to show a reduction in MRSA rates between 26 and 62%.

This video clip from CBS News shows how one transporter helped his hospital adhere to hygiene and contact precautions (sorry about the commercial before the news).

Complete information :http://blogs.hcpro.com/patientsafety/2009/03/positive-deviance-proven-to-lower-mrsa-rates/