Bergeron, Genevieve, Bloch, Danielle, Murray, Kenya, Kratz, Molly, Parton, Hilary, Ackelsberg, Joel, Antwi, Mike, Rosso, Paula Del, Dorsinville, Marie, Kubinson, Hannah, Lash, Maura, Rand, Sophie, Adams, Eleanor, Zhu, Yanchun, Erazo, Richard, Chaturvedi, Sudha, and Weiss, Don
Background Patients colonized with multidrug-resistant Candida auris and discharged to a community setting can subsequently seek care in a different healthcare facility and might be a source of nosocomial transmission of C auris. Methods We designed a case management pilot program for a cohort of New York City residents who had a history of positive C auris culture identified during clinical or screening activities in healthcare settings and discharged to a community setting during 2017–2019. Approximately every 3 months, case managers coordinated C auris colonization assessments, which included swabs of groin, axilla, and body sites yielding C auris previously. Patients eligible to become serially negative were those with ≥2 C auris colonization assessments after initial C auris identification. Clinical characteristics of serially negative and positive patients were compared. Results The cohort included 75 patients. Overall, 45 patients were eligible to become serially negative and had 552 person-months of follow-up. Of these 45 patients, 28 patients were serially negative (62%; rate 5.1/100 person-months), 8 were serially positive, and 9 could not be classified as either. There were no clinical characteristics that were significantly different between serially negative and positive patients. The median time from initial C auris identification to being serially negative at assessments was 8.6 months (interquartile range, 5.7–10.8 months). Conclusions A majority of patients, assessed at least twice after C auris identification, no longer had C auris detectable on serial colonization assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]