Prospective payment fever is an all pervasive affliction that will spare no segment of the health care field. The implied rigidity of these regulations will probably not accommodate arguments that infection control efforts are cost-effective in the long run. It shall force all who labor in this field to exercise judicious restraint in the use of institutional resources. Microbiological analyses provide the most factual information lor infection control efforts. However, recent graduates of medical and nursing schools are the victims of the de-emphasis of bread-and-butter microbiology in their curricula. They lack the ability to request only clinically relevant examinations and do not appreciate the implications of microbiological results with respect to the patient and the health of the hospital or the community at large.

Cost-effective ordering of microbiological and related patient examinations must, therefore, be based on an educational effort that indoctrinates responsible personnel in the appropriateness of requests based on clinical judgment and laboratory instructions. The DRG-induced change in the basic philosophy of patient care demands that microbiologists must become involved in the clinical use of the information they generate, ie, in the relevance of laboratory data to the care of patients. This interaction must benefit the laboratory scientist, for he or she can now insist that important patient information accompany each specimen.