An openEHR based infection control system to support monitoring of nosocomial bacterial clusters and contacts

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • HiGHmed lnfection Control Study Grp - (Author)
  • Pascal Biermann - , Technical University of Braunschweig, Hannover Medical School (MHH), University of Oldenburg (Author)
  • Claas Baier - , Hannover Medical School (MHH) (Author)
  • Ann Christin Vietor - , Robert Koch-Institut (Author)
  • Benedikt Zacher - , Robert Koch-Institut (Author)
  • Tom Baumgartl - , University of Cologne (Author)
  • Tatiana von Landesberger - , University of Cologne (Author)
  • Michael Behnke - , Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin (Author)
  • Michael Storck - , University of Münster (Author)
  • Markus Petzold - , Institute of Medical Microbiology and Virology, University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus Dresden, University Hospital Heidelberg (Author)
  • Martin Kaase - , University of Göttingen (Author)
  • Dirk Schlueter - , Hannover Medical School (MHH) (Author)
  • Michael Marschollek - , Technical University of Braunschweig, Hannover Medical School (MHH) (Author)
  • Simone Scheithauer - , University of Göttingen (Author)
  • Antje Wulff - , Technical University of Braunschweig, Hannover Medical School (MHH), University of Oldenburg (Author)

Abstract

Early outbreak detection, allowing rapid intervention, is essential to reduce the burden of healthcare-associated pathogen transmission, including multidrug-resistant bacteria. Digital, routine data-driven solutions are promising, but often proprietary, non-interoperable, or limited in functional scope. The open-source Smart Infection Control System (SmICS) offers automatic calculations and interactive views on patients' movement and lab data, epidemic curves, contact networks, complemented by temporal-spatial visualizations. It is an open-source software based on openEHR as an interoperability standard and was evaluated by assessing time efficiencies in performing basic infection control tasks (e.g., contact networks) and usability with the System Usability Scale (SUS). Evaluated at three sites, SmICS reduced the time needed for performing routine infection control tasks by up to 81.47% (68.5 min (95%CI [30.5-106.5])) reaching a SUS of 51.6 points. The study reveals time savings through the use of SmICS in daily tasks, but also identified usability issues and a need for minimizing query waiting times.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number385
Number of pages10
Journal npj digital medicine
Volume8
Issue number1
Publication statusPublished - 30 Jun 2025
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

PubMed 40588668
unpaywall 10.1038/s41746-025-01795-9
Scopus 105016096714

Keywords

Keywords

  • Hospital-onset bacteremia, Care-associated infection