Hospitals Turn to Information Technology in MRSA Fight
MedMined™ services provide real-time measurement, prevention of HAIs More than 250 hospitals across the country have turned to Cardinal Health to help prevent, detect, monitor and treat hospital-acquired infections (HAIs), a problem that affects one in every 20 patients across the U.S. and costs the health care industry an estimated $20 billion each year. The MedMined™ Data Mining Surveillance Service monitors the entire hospital for early signs of an emerging issue and targets improvement efforts where and when they can have the most impact. Using technology similar to that used by credit card companies to monitor purchases for fraud, this patented technology automatically identifies patterns indicative of specific and correctable quality breakdowns without predefined search criteria, user-defined control charts or alerts, or chart review. The new MRSA Scorecard provides a hospital-wide view of methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), allowing infection control practitioners to track the types and locations of MRSA infections throughout the hospital. The MRSA Scorecard allows hospitals to identify patients who have tested positive for the bacteria and distinguish between those who likely acquired the infection in the hospital and those who had an MRSA infection present on admission. Through this real-time view, hospitals can rapidly dispatch resources to limit the spread of MRSA infections that are responsible for an estimated 94,000 life-threatening conditions and 18,650 deaths annually in the U.S.[1]
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