Automated surveillance product: public reporting in minutes
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St Joseph Hospital, Eureka, and Redwood Memorial Hospital, Fortuna, are part of St. Joseph Heath System-Humboldt in California. Both are recent winners of patient care awards from Avatar International, a research and consulting firm. They are part of St. Joseph Health System, an integrated delivery organization sponsored by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange.
Challenge:
After the H1N1 influenza outbreak, public health officials required both hospitals to track all influenza cases. Previously, California law only required tracking of influenza in children.
Solution:
The hospitals went live with SafetySurveillorTM in January. The infection control coordinator located at St. Joseph monitors both hospitals. Influenza was not set up in initial “alerts” required. Within minutes of the request from public health officials, influenza for all outpatients and inpatients at both hospitals was added to SafetySurveillor’s infection control alerts.
Results:
- A system alert shortly notified infection control of a positive influenza case in the emergency department
- The emergency depart had not completed a Confidential Morbidity Report so the case may not have been picked up under former manual systems
- The hospitals have yet to see an H1N1 case, but the automated system made the response for public health requests for influenza “very simple and easy”
- The emergency department was trained to use SafetySurveillor and now has access to its’ online information.
"Without SafetySurveillor, I would have had to set something up with the lab
so they could call me with results and that would have taken more time and
involved more people. There was another incident where public health asked how
many RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) cases we’d had. I was able to find the
report in SafetySurveillor, format and download it to a spreadsheet, and send it
off to them before I got off the phone. They were impressed. Without
SafetySurveillor, it would have taken at least an hour of work, not a minute. I
do like it. It’s timely so I can react immediately. Oh yes, I recommend it to
others. I tell everyone how much I love it. I love the immediacy. It’s a great
product."
Suzy Dedekam, RN, BSN
Infection Control Coordinator
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