Contact tracing with a real-time location system: A case study of increasing relative effectiveness in an emergency department - 29/11/17
Highlights |
• | Contact tracing is an essential step in infectious disease control and prevention. |
• | Using Electronic medical record (EMR) is challenging and misses a number of potential exposures. |
• | Real time location system (RTLS) doubled the potential exposures list for pertussis disease beyond the conventional method of EMR-based contact identification |
• | RTLS is more efficient and timely in the process of contact tracing. |
• | Further studies with larger sample size are needed to confirm the findings. |
Abstract |
Background |
Contact tracing is the systematic method of identifying individuals potentially exposed to infectious diseases. Electronic medical record (EMR) use for contact tracing is time-consuming and may miss exposed individuals. Real-time location systems (RTLSs) may improve contact identification. Therefore, the relative effectiveness of these 2 contact tracing methodologies were evaluated.
Methods |
During a pertussis outbreak in the United States, a retrospective case study was conducted between June 14 and August 31, 2016, to identify the contacts of confirmed pertussis cases, using EMR and RTLS data in the emergency department of a tertiary care medical center. Descriptive statistics and a paired t test (α = 0.05) were performed to compare contacts identified by EMR versus RTLS, as was correlation between pertussis patient length of stay and the number of potential contacts.
Results |
Nine cases of pertussis presented to the emergency department during the identified time period. RTLS doubled the potential exposure list (P < .01). Length of stay had significant positive correlation with contacts identified by RTLS (ρ = 0.79; P = .01) but not with EMR (ρ = 0.43; P = .25).
Conclusions |
RTLS doubled the potential pertussis exposures beyond EMR-based contact identification. Thus, RTLS may be a valuable addition to the practice of contact tracing and infectious disease monitoring.
Le texte complet de cet article est disponible en PDF.Key Words : Infectious disease, Pertussis
Plan
| Supported by funds from the Mayo Clinic Robert D. and Patricia E. Kern Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery and contributions from the Mayo Clinic ED-Clinical Engineering Learning Lab. |
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| Conflicts of interest: None to report. |
Vol 45 - N° 12
P. 1308-1311 - décembre 2017 Retour au numéro
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