A preliminary study of automated tools to monitor microbiological data and improve compliance with hospital infection control policies

Abstract

This Masters Thesis project had as its objectives: (1) to provide Vanderbilt University Hospital (VUH) with computerized tools for monitoring microbiological data; (2) to provide the VUH Infection Control Service with tools to help monitor and track infection-relevant patient-related data such as culture results, hospital location, current orders, and contact precautions status; and, (3) to initiate studies to improve compliance with VUH contact precautions policies – specifically, those for antibiotic-resistant organisms such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE). This project achieved its goals by developing and formatively evaluating the MicroTools suite of programs. MicroParse processes VUH microbiology laboratory reports, MicroDash provides infection control staff with aggregated information on patients with a history of antibiotic-resistant infections, and MicroGram generates antibiograms for VUH clinicians.