• Patients will be randomized to be given either ertapenem or a saline placebo
• Patients will be monitored daily in hospital, or evaluated biweekly if up to 56 days post-discharge and once more on day 90 via email/phone/text
• Consent will be obtained for access to patients' electronic medical records

Risks:

• Ertapenem can have a variety of side effects. However, these side effects and associated risk factors are well documented and will be accounted for before starting treatment
• Side effects include anaphylaxis (rare and unlikely), seizures, and diarrhea associated with Clostridium difficile bacteria

Benefits:

• This combination therapy treatment method can potentially reduce hospitalization time by speeding up the clearance of S. aureus from blood

• Your personal information will be kept strictly confidential
• All required data will be abstracted from the original clinical documents. This study will not keep a copy of the patient's clinical charts

You can withdraw from this sub study and/or from future use of your samples at any time, just notify a member of the SNAP study team

• No follow up communications will occur, but we will request that any data collected up until withdrawal be retained for analysis. We will respect any requests from withdrawn patients to have their participant information removed from the study.
• We will also request permission to confirm vital status of patients on Day 90, if agreeable