Response

1. MRSA is represented by ICD9 code V09.0. It can be identified either in the hospital file using one of the ICD9 fields, or in the patient conditions file, which lists all conditions for which a patient was diagnosed for that year.

2. There is a cost of preventive care that you can determine from the prescription database. It generally requires the antibiotic, Vancomycin or the antibiotic, Zyvox (linezolid). Then there is the added cost of MRSA, which is not uniform; rather, it depends upon the patient condition and the patient procedures performed. You will need to estimate this added cost from the data. Both emergency and elective patients have some risk of MRSA. The hospital will want to use the preventive treatment if it costs less than the added cost of MRSA.

3. The fields that were not specifically identified in the data dictionary are not needed for the analysis.