Health IT and infection control are two elements of healthcare that are gaining attention in this era of reform; health IT for its cost-cutting and interoperable capabilities and infection control as a tie to reimbursement.
Here are seven stories on the intersection of health IT and infection control that have been previously reported on Becker's Hospital Review.
1. Electronic reminders, such as text messages and emails, can help patients adhere to pre-surgery recommendations, which can reduce the risk of surgical site infections, found a study in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.
2. Qualis Health, under contract with CMS as the Medicare Quality Improvement Organization for Idaho and Washington, offer a complimentary, online toolkit for hospitals to engage patients and families in infection control efforts during their stay. The toolkit includes resources such as online links, commentary from experts and videos.
3. Nurses can take advantage of an e-book released by American Sentinel University in Aurora, Colo., that outlines risk factors and prevention techniques for the three most common healthcare-associated infections: catheter-associated urinary tract infection, ventilator-associated pneumonia and central line-associated bloodstream infection.
4. Microsoft sold its U.S. patents for disinfecting surfaces (i.e., computer keyboards, touchscreens and miscellaneous input devices) to Vioguard, a company developing self-sanitizing keyboards.
5. Smartphones may be safely used in clinical areas, as long as clinicians adhere to effective hand hygiene policies, according to a study in International Journal of Clinical Practice. Researchers found 60 percent of smartphones used by clinicians who properly adhered to hand hygiene practices had no pathogenic or drug resistant strains of bacteria.
6. A study in Heart & Lung found implementing a surveillance tool in an EMR helped improve sepsis-related clinical outcomes. Researchers suggest the decreased mortality rates and increased rates of home discharges could be due to the EMR surveillance tool's ability to more quickly identify sepsis, thereby reducing the effects and improving clinical quality.
7. UV environmental disinfection has been shown to decrease hospital-acquired multidrug-resistant organisms and Clostridium difficile by 20 percent. Here are 18 hospitals who have implemented UV disinfection robots.
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