"Bringing down the flag": removing the contact precautions label for non-hospitalized patients with prior methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infection or colonization.

A policy consensus has not been reached regarding discontinuing contact precautions in patients with a history of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). We found that as many as 72% of outpatients flagged for past MRSA were no longer carriers, and a single nasal PCR test provided a reasonable negative predictive value for removing contact precautions.