Infection Control Software: The Justification Has Never Been Greater

A recent study by the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council (January 2009) found that the average bill for a patient who contracted an infection during their hospital stay was almost 5½ times more than patients who did not contract an infection. Colin Hung of rL Solutions shows how real-time infection surveillance software can help reduce the impact of HAIs while reducing the workload on Infection Control Practitioners/Infection Preventionists.

It seems that no matter where you look these days, controlling and preventing infectious diseases at healthcare facilities is a hot topic. Everyone from patients, patient advocacy groups, doctors, healthcare leaders, researchers and state legislators have put infection control at or near the top of the priority list of problems that need to be solved. With this intense focus, now is not the time to make cuts to your infection control budget. In fact, now is precisely the time to invest smartly.

But where should that investment be made? Should you invest in better equipment? More training? Improved sterilization techniques? There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of infection control products and services with more coming into the market each day. Although it is likely many of these offerings will have a positive affect on infections, the single best investment you can make is in your Infection Control Practitioners/Infection Preventionists (ICPs).

It is your organization's ICPs that are the best defenders against healthcare acquired infections (HAIs). They identify infections, they help staff invoke the appropriate precautions, they provide education on how to prevent the spread of infections...the list of tasks goes on and on.

Unfortunately there is a silent enemy that is affecting ICPs across the country; something that is sapping their energy and taking them away from their duties. This enemy is so insidious and so well engrained that many believe it is actually part of the value-added duties of an ICP. rL Solutions believes otherwise. What is this enemy? It's the manual collection and analysis of data on the occurrence of infections.

Where ICPs spend most of their time
A recent study conducted by the CDC and APIC revealed how ICPs spend their time at work:

"Staffing and structure of infection prevention and control programs", Stone et al, American Journal of Infection Control, 2009

These results are astonishing.

This study means that in a typical day, an ICP will spend almost ½ their time:

• hunting through lab results looking for "markers" of infectious organisms
• looking at admission information for patients who are potentially infectious
• reviewing surgery logs to identify patients who are at higher risk of infections
• scanning pharmacy orders for proper matches between "bugs and drugs"
• creating reports for department heads, executives, committees and the Board
• ensuring state reporting requirements are being met

To make matters worse, the amount of data that is becoming available to ICPs is increasing exponentially and the number of state reporting requirements is growing almost at the same rate.

Something has to give.

Real-time Infection Surveillance Software - Reducing the Burden
Thankfully, there is a category of software tools that are available that take direct aim at reducing the data collection and analysis burden on an ICP - real-time infection surveillance software. These applications automate the scanning and reviewing of data sources for potential infections. They do in minutes what used to take hours.

So how does it work? In a nutshell, real-time infection surveillance applications connect into the web of healthcare systems like: lab (microbiology), admissions, pharmacy as well as surgery and perform preliminary screening of the data using predefined filters. These filters are tuned to identify potential infection risks. In a sense these surveillance tools are like sensitive ears: they help to identify true signals in a sea of noise.

Once these systems identify a risk (which may be a lab result, a surgery, admission, etc.) it is flagged to the attention of the ICP who can then manage the risk appropriately.

So what are the benefits of real-time surveillance software? There are two very key reasons why this type of software is needed. First and foremost, this type of software greatly reduces the time an ICP needs to spend collecting and analyzing data manually. That 45% mentioned earlier can easily be halved. With more time available an ICP can spend more time on their other duties which have a significant positive impact on healthcare infection rates. Second, real-time surveillance software can often detect risks that previously went unnoticed. So not only is the burden on an ICP reduced, but the quality of the surveillance also increases.

Is all Infection Surveillance/Control Software Created Equally?
So are all the infection surveillance/control software applications the same? The short answer to this, as you probably have guessed, is no.

There are many tools on the market that are aimed at infection control, but take a careful look. Many of these tools do not provide automated surveillance. Instead they require an ICP to manually key in the infection data. Although these tools may help with downstream efforts, they actually increase the burden on an ICP during the data collection/detection stage. Not only do ICPs have to continue using their manual (or perhaps semi-automated) surveillance methods, but these tools then ask the ICP to re-key electronic information into a different system just so it can be tracked and managed.

There are even differences between the tools that provide real-time surveillance. Some only connect to lab systems while others only to admission (ADT) systems. Some tools are geared more to epidemiologists while others are focused more on ICPs (like rL Solutions' Infection MonitorPro^®).

There are certainly a lot of choices and factors to consider!

Choosing the Right Software Need Not Be Difficult
There is no magic bullet to choosing the right software tool. Every healthcare organization is different and every stakeholder has unique requirements for the system they want to work with. But don't despair! There are several key factors that are ALWAYS important and that you should always consider as you look at the different software applications.

First, as mentioned above, any system you choose should provide some form of automated surveillance. Buying into a system that requires manual entry of information is today the equivalent of investing in a video cassette recorder.

Second, the application you choose should be completely system agnostic - meaning that it should be capable of connecting to and accepting data from any healthcare system. It should not force you to have a specific lab system, a specific admission system, etc. It should work with anything. Beware of vendor lock-in!

Third, be sure to take a close look at the reporting capabilities. How easy is it to get your data out of the software? Can reports be created by mere mortals or does it require specialized IT/database knowledge? Can the system produce the reports that you are used to?

Fourth, the company that stands behind the product you choose should be reputable and match what your needs are. Due diligence on the organization that created the software goes without saying, but what is sometimes lost is the type of organization that is offering the software. Are they more consulting focused? How many resources are dedicated to infection control? What is their history? Their attitude towards clients?

Fifth, and probably most important, the system should be easy to use. Ease of use encourages staff members to use the system, and shortens the learning curve for new users. Ease of use also helps to reduce the burden on internal IT resources by empowering the end user to troubleshoot and customize. A system that is powerful, yet difficult to use, means more effort will be expended to keep people using the system - effort that can better spent elsewhere.

Benefits for Stakeholders Across the Organization
One of the reasons why infection surveillance/control software has become such a hot topic is because it offers value throughout the organization. We have already discussed how it benefits ICPs by reducing the surveillance burden, thereby allowing more time for actual infection prevention, but what about other members of your healthcare community? How can this type of software help them?

Well, for starters, clinicians can benefit from immediate and regular notification of infections because of the automated surveillance being provided from the system. Robust infection surveillance systems will generate automated alerts and send them directly to the clinician if a case passes all the criteria of becoming a potential HAI.

For the leaders of healthcare organizations, the software can provide insight in order to better understand the impact of an infection (for example by tying costs to infection rates). The reports can also help ensure that precious infection control resources are used in the areas that need it the most and/or will have the most positive impact.

And of course, let's not forget about the most important stakeholder of all - your patients. Your patients will benefit from an organization that is safer. Real-time infection surveillance means less chance of acquiring an infection which means shorter stays, lower medical costs and less risk.

The Time is Now
A recent SENIC study found that infection control programs that include organized surveillance activities and a system for reporting infections reduces hospital infection rates by as much as 32%. According to recent data from the CDC, an average 165 bed hospital will have approximately 368 HAIs each year. When multiplied by the average cost to the hospital of an HAI ($26,839 according to the American Journal of Medical Quality), the cost can be in the millions. When you consider that infection surveillance/control software can be purchased in most cases for less than $100,000, the ROI is astounding.

Isn't it time you looked at a real-time infection surveillance application from a company that is 100% dedicated to improving healthcare quality and safety? Come and take a look at Infection MonitorPro^® from rL Solutions (www.rl-solutions.com).

Contact Details:
Mike Etzinger
Marketing Director
T: 416.410.8456 ext. 315
E: metzinger@rL-solutions.com