Today begins the World Health Organisation (WHO) directed 'World Antibiotic Awareness Week'.
Antimicrobial resistance happens when microorganisms (such as bacteria, fungi, viruses, and parasites) change when they are exposed to antimicrobial drugs (such as antibiotics, antifungals, antivirals, antimalarials, and anthelmintics). Microorganisms that develop antimicrobial resistance are sometimes referred to as “superbugs”. As a result, the medicines become ineffective and infections persist in the body, increasing the risk of spread to others. The WHO say that good hand hygiene can prevent up to 50% of infections in hospitals. Preventing infections is critical as super bugs that are resistant to antibiotics and have a high mortality rate. For example, the most recent outbreak of CPE (carbapenemase-producing enterobacteriaceae) in Irish hospitals has a mortality rate of 40-50%.
MEG Support Tools, have collaborated with the global hand hygiene company GOJO and SureWash along with one of the leading cancer hospitals in Europe, The Christie in Manchester, to demonstrate how ‘smart hospital’ technology can reduce these infections without the need for extra personnel.
The infection control team in the Christie Hospital describe how live data from the MEG audit app, the SureWash interactive training kiosk and GOJO’s SMARTLINK™ dispenser system was combined to create a live data dashboard to facilitate better infection risk management. Analytics were generated on the live data to provide actionable feedback to both staff and patients if the standards of hand hygiene practice were slipping.
The results indicate that integrated digital tools can provide rich data that measure impact and provide feedback to support the implementation of multimodal hand hygiene campaigns, reducing the need for significant additional personnel resources.
If you'd like to read further, more details are available online from the American Journal of Infection Control here.
MEG Support Tools enable frontline medical workers to spend more time with patients and less time with administrative workloads by creating mobile first, paperless tools that promote access to information, antimicrobial stewardship and improved reporting in hospitals. If you think this is something that your hospital would benefit from, contact Kerrill on;
087 394 9516
