Roy Blunt: “today I wish to honor Dr. Tara Palmore and Dr. Julie Segre, 2013 Federal Employees of the Year, for their…”

“today I wish to honor Dr. Tara Palmore and Dr. Julie Segre, 2013 Federal Employees of the Year, for their ground-breaking research to stop the spread of deadly hospital-acquired infections. Each year approximately 100,000 patients die from hospital- acquired infections. These deadly infections affect patients who are in the course of receiving healthcare treatment for other conditions; therefore, the patients often already have compromised immune systems. These two doctors created a revolutionary model to identify and halt the spread of infection for the rest of the health care industry to follow. Over the course of a 12-month period in 2011 and 2012, a rare and deadly ``superbug'' was spreading from patient to patient at one of the Nation's premier research hospitals, the National Institutes of Health's Clinical Center. This two-woman team--Dr. Tara Palmore, a deputy hospital epidemiologist, and Dr. Julie Segre, a senior investigator--partnered with a talented team of doctors to accomplish an extraordinary achievement. For the first time ever, they were able to sequence the bacteria's DNA to decipher how the pathogen spread from patient to patient. This allowed doctors to detect the origins of the infections, trace the transmission, and implement measures to put an end to the outbreak.…”