Automated Infection Identification and Mitigation Systems

Healthcare Associated Infections are infections that patients acquire while receiving treatment for medical or surgical conditions. HAIs are also known as hospital-acquired infections or nosocomial infections. HAIs occur in all settings of care, including acute care within hospitals and same day surgical centers, ambulatory outpatient care in healthcare clinics, and in long-term care facilities, such as nursing homes and rehabilitation facilities. HAIs are associated with a variety of causes, including (but not limited to) the use of medical devices, such as catheters and ventilators, complications following a surgical procedure, transmission between healthcare workers and patients, or the result of inappropriate antibiotic use.
While infection control work was previously monitored through manual means, automated infection identification and mitigation systems have been on the market for over ten years. The adoption of these automated systems has been recently bolstered through an increase in reporting and outcome mandates. These mandates include reporting on infections to the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) and in response to state mandates, as well as non-payment for “never events” including some HAI-associated events. These developments make a real-time solution with automated tracking more of a necessity, due to the inability of manual systems to generate all of the necessary reporting and real-time surveillance. There is also a shortage of qualified infection preventionists which makes automating workload even more compelling.