Legionnaire’s Precautions: Notice & Instructions from Infection Prevention

Seattle King County Public Health Department (SKCPH) has notified us of two Legionnaire’s pneumonia cases from March that, based on incubation period and time of onset, may have been acquired at Valley Medical Center. It is important to note that these are NOT confirmed cases of HAI Legionnaire’s, only possible. However, out of an abundance of caution and to be sure we are keeping our patients safe we are complying with a request from SKCPH to perform a full investigation of these possible cases. There are many aspects of such an investigation and one aspect that involves hospital staff who care for patients is called prospective case finding.  For the next year, we are asked to screen any case of pneumonia that might have been acquired in our hospital for Legionnaire’s disease. Such cases could include:

•   In-hospital acquired aspiration 
•   Ventilator acquired pneumonia
•   Other pneumonias with onset in hospital 
•   Pneumonia in patients who were hospitalized in the last month at Valley with no respiratory complaints and are now being evaluated for a new pneumonia

We are requesting that all patients hospitalized or evaluated in the ER who fit this description have a Legionnaire’s’ urinary antigen and, if possible, a sputum culture for Legionnaire’s’ (including with expectorated sputum) performed. These tests are both available in EPIC and are performed at LabCorp.

Patients with positive results should be referred to Infection Prevention or Mike Hori, hospital epidemiology for further evaluation at Inf_Prev@valleymed.org or via Voalte to Michael Hori, Jacqueline Obado or Silke Audinet.  

Michael Hori, MD, Hospital Epidemiology 

Jacqueline Obado, RN, Infection Prevention