MIASMA: A Medical Informatics Application for Systematic Microbiological Alerts

Abstract

This PhD Dissertation project had as its objectives: (1) to develop MIASMA, a potentially open-source Medical Informatics Application for Systematic Microbiological Alerts that uses recently developed methods (e.g., from syndromic surveillance and from heuristic observations) to detect single-hospital outbreaks of both commonly occurring and rare bacterial, viral, and fungal species; (2) to deploy MIASMA in the Vanderbilt University Hospital (VUH) for use by the Department of Infection Control and Prevention; (3) to compare the alerting timeliness, positive predictive value, and sensitivity of MIASMA to current VUH infection control practices; and (4) to evaluate the utility of MIASMA when used to supplement current VUH infection control practices.