One of our hospital customers recently had a patient diagnosed with a highly contagious infection that could result in a life-threatening situation if passed to healthcare providers. In this case, the patient was in the hospital for several days before it was diagnosed. Every clinician that came in contact with this type of patient would normally have to be treated with prophylactic antibiotics.
Which brings up the first of two issues – determining who had contact with that patient. In the absence of this information, many hospitals would opt to treat every provider in that unit, just in case. Not only is this costly, but it can add to antibiotic resistance as well as side effects for those having to take the medication.
With technology like ours, management can see which providers entered and exited each patient’s room, so they can narrow the pool of healthcare workers that may need to take antibiotics.
There’s a second issue – does every provider who has entered the patient’s room need to be treated? Not necessarily – typically, only clinicians with a high number of patient interactions should be treated prophylactically. The Clean Hands – Safe Hands system reports how often each individual visited each room. This Performance Bubble Plot™ shows data for the clinicians that cared for the infected patient. The size of the bubble indicates the number of room entrances and exits – larger bubbles mean that provider had more interaction with the ill patient.
After seeing this data, the hospital decided to only treat the three most active clinicians prophylactically. Of course, they kept a close eye on the other eight providers to ensure that they remained healthy.
Access to this clinical intervention data reduced the number of healthcare workers that needed treatment significantly, saving money and allowing the hospital to remain in line with their antimicrobial stewardship guidelines.
If you’d like to learn more about how our electronic hand hygiene reminder system decreases HAIs by over 60%, leading to the above results, download our free white paper now. Or contact us so we can discuss your hospital’s specific needs.
