2009 Lifetime Achievement Award

Lifetime Achievement Award

For Outstanding Contributions in Raising Awareness, Educating and Changing the Face of MRSA

Professor Emeritus Barry M. Farr, MD, MSc, University of Virginia

Dr. Barry M. Farr is the recipient of the MRSA Survivors Network “Person of the Year Award” for 2009. Dr. Farr is a world-renowned expert on MRSA and highly respected in his field. Dr. Farr’s dedication, perserverance and committment to raising awareness, education and eradicating MRSA has earned him this award and we are forever grateful for his work in advancing active detection isolation (ADI) to save lives. He is a true American hero and pioneer in his field.

Professor Emeritus Barry M. Farr, MD, MSc retired as the William S. Jordan Jr. Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at the University of Virginia in 2004. He was a UVA hospital Epidemiologist for 18 years and the Society for Healthcare Epidemiolgy of America (SHEA) President in 2002. He is best known for his work showing how antibiotic-resistant nosocomial infections like MRSA can be effectively controlled.

In 1980, Dr. Farr was a resident physician member of UVA Infection Control Cmte that approved of taking a relatively new, proactive approach to MRSA control – active detection and isolation (ADI) of all colonized patients. Within 1.5 years this approach completely eradicated the MRSA strain that had been spreading out of control for 3 years and causing almost half of the hospital’s S. aureus infections in 1980.
In 1990, Dr. Farr was a UVA Epidemiologist when MRSA infections started rising again at UVA despite ADI, due to increasing permeation of the surrounding healthcare systems with MRSA. He began advocating ADI for use at all healthcare facilities because almost all were using the approach that had failed at UVA in the 1970′s (i.e., isolating only those found to have MRSA by a clinical culture).

In 1995, Dr. Farr published data showing the rise in MRSA infections at UVA despite ongoing ADI at UVA due to increasing permeation of the surrounding healthcare systems [Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 1995;16:686-696]

In 1996, he published data showing that MRSA spread was 15.6-fold lower using ADI than with vigorous, frequent hand hygiene when colonized patients had not yet been detected. [AM J Epidemiol 1996;143:496-504]

Dr. Farr was appointed President of SHEA in 2002 and he appointed a cmte of epidemiologists with documented expertise in controlling antibiotic resistant infections to draft a SHEA Guideline for controlling nosocomial MRSA and VRE.

In 2002, he published data showing that ADI saved UVA money by comparing estimated costs of MRSA infections in UVA NICU with those in another hospital’s NICU taking a less aggressive approach which over 51 months endured 75 MRSA bloodstream infections and 14 associated deaths. [J Hosp Infect. 2002; 51:126-131.]
Also in 2002, he published data showing that ADI keeps MRSA infection frequency lower at UVA and saves money as compared with other university hospitals of comparable size and complexity not using ADI. [Infect Control Hosp Edpidemiol 2002; 23:407-410.]

In 2003 the SHEA Guideline for MRSA and VRE control is published. [Infect Control and Hosp Epidemiol 2003;24:362-386.]

Dr. Farr publishes data in 2006 showing that 85% of UVA MRSA patients over several years have no positive clinical culture during a hospital stay and thus would go unisolated without ADI. [Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol. 2006;27: 116-121.]

In 2006, he published a review identifying misleading statements in articles claiming that isolation doesn’t work, is unneeded, or is unsafe ( including design flaws of a randomized trial of MRSA control biasing the trial toward a false-negative result). [Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2006;27:1096-11-6.]

Dr. Farr published and editorial in 2006 concluding that, “American physicians and nurses are as good, knowledgeable, and caring as their counterparts in Northern European countries and Western Australia where nosocomial MRSA infections have been consistently and convincingly controlled to very low levels for decades using ADI (i.e., a practicable system), contrasting sharply with much higher nosocomial MRSA rates in other European nations and other Australian states not routinely using this approach, including some emphasizing hand hygiene for years, apparently to no avail. “[Infect Control hosp Epidemiol 2006;27:999-1003.}

In 2007, he published a commentary identifying misleading statements in a SHEA/APIC position paper opposing Illinois and Maryland legislation that would have required routine ADI. {Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2007:28:589-593.]