To read this content please select one of the options below:

Repurposing Geographic Information Systems for Routine Hospital Infection Control

Structural Approaches to Address Issues in Patient Safety

ISBN: 978-1-83867-085-6, eISBN: 978-1-83867-084-9

Publication date: 24 October 2019

Abstract

This chapter discusses the potential role of geographic information systems (GIS) for infection control within the hospital system. The chapter provides a brief overview of the role of GIS in public health and reviews current work applying these methods to the hospital setting. Finally, it outlines the potential opportunities and challenges for adapting GIS for use in the hospital setting for infection prevention. A targeted literature review is used to illustrate current use of GIS in the hospital setting. The discussion of complexity was compiled using the nonadoption, abandonment, scale-up, spread, and sustainability (NASSS) framework. Challenges and opportunities were then extracted from this exercise by the authors. There are multiple challenges to implementation of a Hospital GIS for infection prevention, mainly involving the domains of technology, organization, and adaptation. Use of a transdisciplinary approach can address many of these challenges. More research, specifically prospective, reproducible clinical trials, needs to be done to better assess the potential impact and effectiveness of a Hospital GIS in real-world settings. This chapter highlights a powerful but rarely used tool for infection prevention within the hospital. Given the importance of reducing hospital-acquired infection rates, it is vital to identify relevant methods from other fields that could be translated into the field of hospital epidemiology.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the Institute for the Design of Environments Aligned for Patient Safety (IDEA4PS) team at The Ohio State University. Work by this team has developed some of the initial prototypes for a local hospital GIS discussed in this chapter. This grant is sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality (AHRQ) (P30HS024379). The opinions expressed in this document are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of AHRQ.

Citation

Hebert, C. and Root, E.D. (2019), "Repurposing Geographic Information Systems for Routine Hospital Infection Control", Structural Approaches to Address Issues in Patient Safety (Advances in Health Care Management, Vol. 18), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 61-73. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1474-823120190000018003

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited