A few years ago, I had a patient who was admitted with minor blunt trauma following a motor vehicle crash. A couple of days later, while preparing her for discharge, I noticed a cough. The patient mentioned that she had had a persistent cough, which she had not told anyone about. She was put on isolation while we waited to confirm that she had active Tuberculosis. At this point, many clinicians (including me) and other patients had likely been exposed. Potentially, hundreds of people needed TB tests and follow-up medical care.
What about a similar situation where there’s one ICU patient who tests positive for C. diff. Then two patients, then six…
What if you could identify which clinicians visited the contagious patient and whether or not they cleaned their hands as they left the room? And what if you could know where a provider with dirty hands went next?
Now, you can. We are pleased to announce our new Concierge Contact Tracing™ service. If your hospital experiences an outbreak or exposure, let us know. Our data scientists can identify which providers were in contact with an infected patient, which day and time, whether or not they sanitized, and where they went next.
Infection Preventionists are already skilled at identifying how an outbreak spreads – whether it’s vertical or horizontal, etc. But, until now, they didn’t know why! There’s no practical way IPs can do this on their own, and with the changes coming in healthcare, many won’t be staffed with the resources to do this in an efficient manner. We can help analyze the root cause of exposure to enable corrective action quickly before the problem continues to spread.
If you’d like to explore how our system typically doubles hand hygiene performance rates and reduces HAIs by up to 75-80%, here’s a brief video about how it works. Or here’s a white paper on How the New Joint Commission Hand Hygiene Standards Could Impact Your Hospital.
