Overview

Clostridioides difficile (C. difficile) is the most common healthcare-associated pathogen, causing >500,000 infections and >29,000 deaths per year in the US. Traditional approaches to reduce hospital-onset CDI focus on identifying, isolating, and treating symptomatic patients to prevent transmission to other patients. Recent genomic epidemiology studies, however, suggest that most hospital-onset CDI cases are attributable to asymptomatic carriers who either progress from colonization to active infection themselves or transmit C. difficile to other patients while asymptomatic. This trial will evaluate an intervention to pre-emptively identify asymptomatic C. difficile carriers and then implement a patient-tailored prevention package to protect the carrier from progression to active infection and to prevent transmission from the carrier to other patients.

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• Patients admitted to ICU or Oncology units and identified to carry C. Difficile via VRE swab

Exclusion Criteria:

• Patients not identified as carriers of C. difficile and patients not admitted to ICU or oncology units