How Prosight Helps Prevent the Most Common Hospital-Acquired Infections
While HAIs are a threat to patient safety, there are many innovative strategies and solutions available to help healthcare facilities and providers prevent them.
While patients visit healthcare facilities to receive the care they need, sometimes they may also develop infections during their stay. The CDC estimates that 1 in 31 hospital patients is affected by healthcare-associated infections. Healthcare-acquired infections, also known as HAIs or healthcare-associated infections, are infections that a patient gets while receiving treatment at a healthcare facility. These infections are oftentimes preventable and usually spread through a wound, medical device, or the lungs.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were the first to develop formal standard definitions for HAIs. These are the four main types:
- Central Line-Associated Bloodstream Infections - These serious infections occur when germs enter the bloodstream through a central line.
- Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infections - These infections occur when germs travel along the catheter and cause an infection in the bladder or kidney.
- Surgical Site Infections - These infections occur after surgery in the part of the body where the surgery took place.
- Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia - This bacterial infection develops in a person who is on a ventilator.
According to a study on preventable hospital-acquired infections, postoperative wound infections were the most common at 44.4%, catheter-related urinary infections were second at 15.9%, and infections associated with a central venous catheter were third at 7.9%, respectively. To help prevent these infections, HAIs are tracked and monitored based on national and local guidelines and regulations.
While HAIs are a threat to patient safety, there are many innovative strategies and solutions available to help healthcare facilities and providers prevent them.
Strategies to Prevent Common Hospital-Acquired Infections
Modern IoT healthcare platforms can help your healthcare facility prevent common hospital-acquired infections by monitoring hand hygiene compliance and tracking assets in real-time. Discover how to leverage RTLS technology to keep your facility clean and ensure staff follows safety guidelines.
Improve Hand Hygiene Compliance with Real-Time Locating Systems
Hand hygiene compliance is measured in every hospital via organizations such as Leapfrog and the Joint Commission. Inadequate hand hygiene is one of the major causes of HAIs. And according to the CDC, healthcare providers clean their hands less than half of the times they should. While this is the case, it can be challenging for many facilities to track compliance and protect their staff and patients.
Real-time location systems, abbreviated to RTLS, are useful tools that can help prevent HAIs in various types of healthcare facilities. RTLS can accurately track when healthcare workers utilize hand sanitizing stations, and when they enter or leave a patient’s room. Here is how an RTLS solution effectively works:
- RTLS-Badges Track Usage - These badges communicate the accurate location of the staff and when they are near a hand sanitizing station.
- Provides Detailed Records - System software records if that healthcare worker has activated a sanitizing dispenser as required.
- Data Is Easily Viewable - Record compliance data is viewable at facility-wide, departmental, and individual levels.
- It Simplifies Hand Hygiene Audits - Designed to simplify the hand hygiene audit process and improve facility workflow enhancements.
Provide Clean, Functional Equipment with Asset Tracking
In addition to proper hand hygiene, clean equipment is essential to prevent HAIs. Contaminated equipment can make patients sick, so your facility must have a way to monitor and track when equipment needs to be cleaned.
Through real-time asset tracking, you can gain pinpoint visibility into the location, status, and utilization of all your medical equipment. Within some asset tracking platforms, you can even activate instant notifications with our platform when equipment needs to be returned, maintained, and cleaned. These capabilities greatly lower the risk of using contaminated equipment with patients — thus minimizing the risk of HAIs.
Improve Your Patient Safety and Avoid Hospital-Acquired Infections with Cox Prosight
Hospital-acquired infections pose a serious risk to the safety of patients within healthcare facilities. To minimize the spread of infections, hospitals can leverage RTLS to improve hand hygiene compliance and ensure clean equipment.
Cox Prosight can address these concerns and more. Leveraging cutting-edge bluetooth low-energy technology to provide both hand-hygiene compliance and asset tracking, Cox Prosight can help reduce HAIs and provide peace of mind for patients and staff. Our RTLS platform will streamline and modernize operations in your hospital with an easy-to-main solution.
Discover how our cutting-edge technology can seamlessly integrate into your facility — contact our team today to learn more about how our solution can help transform key operational issues.
