Hospitals, by their very nature, are dangerous places. Sick and infected patients are clustered together in one institution, often in close proximity to those who are immunosuppressed due to recent surgery, chemotherapy or transplantation. Contact between these various patient groups is easily achieved via the hands of healthcare workers (HCWs), use of shared equipment or the hospital’s air handling system. Thus, for many virulent pathogens, hospitals can effectively act as a giant PCR machine, rapidly multiplying the number of resistant isolates encountered, but with no need for Taq polymerase. Until recently, the key focus of many health bureaucracies has been primarily on the quantity of healthcare—namely patient throughput,.
