Improvement in identification of healthcare associated infections using and electronic surveillance system
Dr Mariyam Athifa1, Mr Joel Parke1, Dr Liana Varrone1, Ms Rebecca McCann1
1Healthcare Associated Infection Unit, Department of Health, East Perth, Australia
Background
Previously in Western Australia (WA) Health, surveillance of healthcare-associated infections was by traditional methodologies. The data was manually entered into a database by individual hospital infection control nurses. This was resource intensive, time consuming and was limited to specific organisms and conditions. In July 2020, an electronic surveillance system (ESS) interfaced with other existing clinical applications was introduced into 32 public hospitals.
Aim
To quantify the six-month missed reportable incidence of hospital-identified Clostridioides difficile infection (HI-CDI) between the manual entry database and the ESS to evaluate the effectiveness of electronic surveillance.
Methods
HI-CDI positive results for the period November 2020 to April 2021were downloaded from the ESS and compared with the data in the manual entry database for the same time period. The missing cases from the database were confirmed to see whether they met the validation criteria and refresher training was provided to the hospitals to case find using the ESS.
Results
In total, 519 HI-CDI cases were reported in this six-month period and 35 (7%) were missing in the manual entry database. The monthly number of missing cases decreased from 6/102 (6%) in November 2020 to 3/95 (3%) in April 2021.
Conclusion
The findings of this investigation highlight that electronic surveillance that utilises information held in other clinical application data bases is more efficient than conventional infection surveillance method as the number of missing cases has decreased.
Biography:
Dr Mariyam Athifa is the Senior Program Officer at Healthcare Associated Infection Unit at Communicable Disease Control Directorate at Department of Health, Western Australia. She is the clinical business lead for the implementation and management of a state-wide electronic surveillance system for healthcare associated infections.
She is a Registered Nurse with post graduate certificate in Intensive Care Nursing, Master of Health Services Management and a Doctor of Philosophy in International Health. Having worked in both acute care environments and public health, she has a deep knowledge and appreciation for improving infection control measures through new technologies for enhanced patient outcomes.