Detection of infectious disease
outbreaks in hospitals
“The World Health Organization has
estimated that, globally, 8.7% of hospital patients develop hospital acquired
infections”. Infections acquired in a hospital are also called nosocomial
infections. “In the US alone, 2 million people developed a hospital acquired
infection in the last year”. About 90,000 of these patients die as a result of
their infections. Hospital-acquired infections can be caused by bacteria,
viruses, fungi, or parasites.
These microorganisms may already be
present in the patient's body or may come from the environment, contaminated
hospital equipment, health care workers, or other patients. About 25% of these
infections can be prevented by healthcare workers taking proper precautions
when caring for patients. Infections spread both by touch and through the air.
Healthy people can usually fend them off, or may get only mildly sick from
them, but someone with a compromised immune system or an open wound will be at
risk for getting very sick .Infections that become clinically evident after 48
hours of hospitalization are considered hospital acquired. Infections that
occur after the patient is discharged from the hospital can be considered
healthcare associated if the organisms were acquired during the hospital stay.
The infections usually develop in a surgical wound, or the urinary tract or
lungs. Decreasing the number of hospital acquired infections is the number one
priority for all medical personnel. If the infection is found early on, it is
much easier to treat and contain.
Along
with the obvious precautions, such as hand washing and sanitizing common areas,
it is important to record and document any form of infection that had be
detected. Hospitals are developing new procedures and new software to help keep
infections low or even nonexistent. A WHONET-SaT scan or BAC Link is a data
conversion utility that standardizes data from existing microbiology systems
into WHONET-SaT formats. WHONET is used by 1000 laboratories world wide. This was originally developed for
geographical disease surveillance to assess the statistical significant of
community cancer cluster. The device is used to chart any infections that have
occurred in the hospital by calculating the amount of infections in a specific area
that have developed within days of each other. The information is then studied
to detect what type of infection may be able to be spread around due to improper
infection control.
“Microbiology- based cluster detection
systems should use automated statistical methods to optimize cluster
identification, lessen surveillance burden, and expand cluster detection to all
pathogens across all hospital locations and services”. Tests run daily to
record any new infections to see any significant details that may show any
similarities between any infections developed within the same amount of time.
This will help to prevent any spreading of infection.
Hospital acquired infections are very
common and very serious. Infection can lead to death if not properly treated.
It is important to follow the infection control protocols in each facility to
help reduce the spreading of infection. Software may prevent the spreading of
infection if studied on a daily bases.
