Preventing Infection Outbreaks
is in Your Hands

You Can’t Fix What You Can’t Measure

Without an accurate tracking solution in place, lack of reliable data severely handicaps a hospital's ability to improve accountability and stop the spread of infections. Not to mention, reducing the cost and associated penalties of hospital-acquired infections.  

One simple example is hand hygiene. On average, there are 100 hand hygiene opportunities per occupied patient room per day in a hospital, resulting in potentially millions of hygiene opportunities on an annual basis.  At the same time, the state of the art has been manual peer observation, often resulting in no more than 100 observations on a monthly basis. As a result, hospitals are led to believe that hand hygiene rates are much better than reality. 

Electronic hand hygiene monitoring is the industry’s new standard of excellence for hospitals and infection prevention teams to measure hand hygiene compliance.  Hospital quality and safety rating organizations, including The Leapfrog Group are paying close attention to the impact these automated systems have on overall safety, in comparison to traditional, outdated manual methods.  

Too Little Too Late: Is your Hospital Prepared for an Infection Outbreak?

When fast-spreading pathogens, such as measles, the flu, or the latest global health threat, coronavirus, make headlines, we all hope that hospitals are fully armed with the right tools to treat and prevent further harm.  However, when an outbreak occurs, health systems often require extensive, short-term resources to maximize safety and facility preparedness.  

At that point… is it too late?  

In the instance of a health threat, is your organization prepared to take action?  Investing in solutions that mitigate the implications of an unexpected event, such as coronavirus, should be a no-brainer, but is not commonly top of mind until it needs to be.  This critical issue presents an opportunity for change. It’s never too late to explore the innovative solutions available, like SwipeSense, to automatically monitor and measure safety performance activities.  Focusing efforts to remove hand hygiene or proper nurse rounding as weak links, reduces harm and impacts the overall patient experience.  

Efficient Exposure Tracking: Save Time, Save Money, Save Lives

After identifying the source of infection, the World Health Organization recommends thorough contact tracing to determine contact exposure.  ' Who came into contact with that patient? What rooms were exposed? Which pieces of hospital equipment were exposed?  Are exposed individuals being monitored for symptoms?’ 

Exposure tracking is a necessary, yet often arduous process that results in tens or hundreds of hours of manual work to go through charts, retrace steps, track mobile equipment, all while actively working to contain and stop further spread to other staff and patients.  During a typical shift, nurses are spending up to an hour during each shift searching for hospital equipment. With the added pressure of an infection outbreak, that time is too valuable to waste.

RTLS technology allows a hospital to virtually map and track all of the most important assets in a facility: its people and medical equipment.  As data drives hospital executives’ objectives, imagine the powerful impact of millions of data points that can be tied to eliminating preventable medical errors, reducing costs, and improving patient experience.  

“When dealing with an outbreak in the past, we spent more than 100 combined staff hours conducting electronic record chart trace backs to determine team members who entered a single room.

With real-time, room-level data from SwipeSense, we are able to run a report on the exposed room, quickly identifying who may have come into contact with a harmful organism. This is invaluable to Infection Preventionists.”

— Jamie Swift, System Director Infection Prevention, Ballad Health

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