Background: Hospital manage-

ment of patients infected with or colonized by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) tra-ditionally includes some form of isolation to prevent transmission of MRSA to other patients. Re-cently, the risks and value of iso-lation have been questioned.1,2 Design: This prospective 1-year study examined rates of MRSA colonization or infection in 2 in-tensive care units (ICUs) and compared a strategy of isolating infected or colonized patients (“move phase”) with not isolatin