Post-discharge follow-up of hospital-associated infections in paediatric patients with conventional questionnaires and electronic surveillance.
J Hosp Infect
; 80(1): 13-6, 2012 Jan.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-22036627
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
Viral infections are common causes of hospital-associated infections (HAIs) in paediatric patients, with most of these infections only becoming evident after discharge.AIM:
To analyse the benefits and costs of conventional and electronic surveillance methods for conducting HAI follow-ups.METHODS:
A comparison was made between response rate, time required per patient and costs to the healthcare system of conventional and electronic surveillance methods (sms, e-mail, telephone call).FINDINGS:
Altogether 1927 patients participated in the conventional followed up in 2001-2003, of whom 1175 (61%) returned the questionnaire; during the electronic surveillance period in 2005-2007, 2309 patients were followed-up in hospital, and 1940 of them (84%) returned the post-discharge information to us. The time needed by HCWs was 33 min per patient in the conventional follow-up and 13 min in the electronic follow-up, the total costs per patient being 15.07 and 13.61 respectively. A decrease of 17.1% in annual expenses was achieved with the electronic follow-up. The incidence of HAI was 8.4% in the conventional period and 12.2% in the electronic surveillance period, most cases becoming symptomatic after hospitalization.CONCLUSION:
Electronic data collection was a convenient way of implementing a continuous HAI follow-up, achieving both a higher participation rate and lower costs.
Texto completo:
1
Colección:
01-internacional
Base de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Infección Hospitalaria
/
Métodos Epidemiológicos
/
Recolección de Datos
Tipo de estudio:
Evaluation_studies
/
Observational_studies
/
Prognostic_studies
/
Risk_factors_studies
/
Screening_studies
Límite:
Child, preschool
/
Humans
Idioma:
En
Revista:
J Hosp Infect
Año:
2012
Tipo del documento:
Article
País de afiliación:
Finlandia