Top 7 Benefits Of Automating Contact Tracing
Automating contact tracing with Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS) in healthcare facilities enhances infection control by providing accurate, real-time data on staff, patients, and equipment interactions, enabling faster reporting, better decision-making, compliance with safety standards, and more effective management of infectious disease outbreaks.
As we mentioned in our previous post, Contact Tracing & Effective Infection Prevention, Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS) provide immediate or real-time tracking and management of medical equipment, staff, and patients. RTLS and similar solutions are critical to taking proactive measures against the spread of infectious diseases. Accurate data means smarter, more timely decision-making: By automating important infection control processes such as contact tracing, healthcare facilities can turn to RTLS solutions to find assurance.
According to a recent survey of 1,039 acute care hospitals conducted by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC), only about 6 percent of American hospitals have infection control procedures in place to effectively and safely handle Ebola patients. Among these facilities, about 6% said they were "well-prepared," and about 5% said they were "not prepared."
RTLS technology gives healthcare organizations the confidence that potential exposure lists are accurate and up-to-date, so that monitoring and treatment are properly targeted. With this added support, healthcare executives are better equipped to fight the spread of infectious diseases more efficiently and comply with Joint Commission outbreak response standards of safety, through greater visibility and less human error.
CenTrak's Single-Use Patient Tag is ideal for patient contact tracing.
Top 7 Benefits of Automating Contact Tracing
- 1.
Bigger, Better Data
- Moving away from manually recorded data (location, temperature, humidity, etc.) to automated RTLS allows for more accurate and complete information.
- Hospitals that tag their staff, patients, and assets can have accurate records of location data sets for each individual group, as well as information regarding the interactions among them (staff-patient-equipment).
- No need to manually record data means...
- 2.
Faster Reporting
- Improved workflow for staff and patients. During an outbreak, gathering information can be as simple as logging into your application and downloading the reports you need.
- Analysis and communication are a lot simpler as a result.
- A facility that has tagged all patients, staff, and assets can simply run a report showing all team members' schedules and locations, which leads to better communication and response.
- 3.
Informed Communications Strategy
- RTLS can help you not only identify which rooms or units people or equipment were in, but also how long they were there.
- This can help hospital leadership teams decide on communications strategy. For example, you could send customized email notifications to various groups:
- a) Staff who came in direct contact with an infected patient
- b) Staff who were on-site but not in direct contact with the infected patient
- c) Staff and visitors who weren't scheduled/on-site during the time in question
- 4.
Disposable and/or Waterproof Devices
- Dispose of or disinfect any active-RFID tags that came into contact with infected people or objects.
- Tags which are fully enclosed and can be fully immersed in cleaning solution are necessary to ensure no further infection risk.
- 5.
Historical Reporting
- Automation not only allows for ease of recording, but also quicker, more accurate reporting on this data.
- Information can be gathered immediately or retrieved later. Most customer-facing applications store data for up to 30 days.
- 6.
Improve Safety & Security
- Enable more complex safety and security use cases, for example, door and elevator locking systems.
- In an isolation-type scenario, access control can be enabled so that all patients, staff, etc. who have not been given specific tags are locked out of the hospital unit containing the infected patient to prevent unwanted contact.
- 7.
Integrate with EMR/EHR
- For infections which are treatable by vaccine, compare schedule and location data set against staff, patient, and visitor vaccination reports or medical records to determine risk level and send communication.
- The location-enabled data prevented the miscommunication or grief a mass email (to non-relevant hospital staff) would have caused.
Sources:
- 1.Few U.S. Hospitals Ready to Handle Ebola, Survey Finds http://bit.ly/1tcKReH
- 2.RFID in Healthcare Conference 2014, "Improving Patient Outcomes and ROI With RFID"
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Top 7 Benefits of Automating Contact Tracing
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CenTrak Patient Tracking
CenTrak's Enterprise Location Services utilize Real-Time Location Systems to enhance patient safety in hospitals by providing infant protection with bassinet-level tracking, pediatric bed-level visibility, elopement and wander management, as well as infection control and environmental monitoring, supporting over one million tags globally to ensure secure, efficient healthcare environments.