Members of the Toronto Practitioners of Infection Control (TPIC) from Toronto area hospitals (the first letter of the hospital postal code is M) were surveyed to determine the number of patients identified with MRSA in their facilities in 1996 and 1997. The goal of this study was to determine the accuracy of the numbers of laboratory reported cases identified by these hospitals in the LPTP surveys, to estimate the number of patients who may have been reported by more than one laboratory and to determine the true number of cases of MRSA in Toronto area hospitals.

Results from this survey confirmed that in the Toronto area hospitals, the numbers of cases reported by more than one laboratory was less than 10% and the numbers of cases matched between the two surveys confirming that patients were being included only once regardless of number of positive cultures on each patient.

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