APIC position paper: The importance of surveillance technologies in the prevention of health care-associated infections

Shaping the future for quality: Initiating active surveillance as foundation to drive improvement for health care-associated infections

“…Although active surveillance is a vital element of an effective infection prevention and control program, it consumes too much time of an infection preventionist and this limits the time available for education, training and performance improvement activities. 6 thus, infection preventionists in most organizations often allow automated electronic technology to alter the manner in which passive surveillance is performed, since it may ease the burden of data management and allow them to ''go forth and accomplish the profession's highest calling: prevention.'' 29 In fact, active surveillance is always more superior than passive surveillance, no matter how sophisticated the computer program or how many gigabytes of memory available.…”

“…1,4,5 Surveillance of HCAIs is also an essential component of an effective infection prevention and control program. 1,6,7 We observed a reduction of HCAIs during a 4 year period after initiation of an active targeted and modified total house surveillance program within Mafraq intensive care units in April 2008.…”

Electronic surveillance systems in infection prevention: Organizational support, program characteristics, and user satisfaction

“…A recent APIC position paper describes the benefits and essential components of automated electronic surveillance and notes that ESSs may ease the burden of data management in infection prevention and control programs. 23 As the responsibilities of infection prevention and control department programs continue to expand into such areas as mandatory reporting, behavioral interventions, emergency preparedness, and construction, increasingly sophisticated data mining and informatics have the potential to support the improvement of resource utilization and cost-effectiveness while reducing infections through prevention activities. This study suggests that organizational support is important to the success of an ESS.…”

Methodology of the Norwegian Surveillance System for Healthcare-Associated Infections: The value of a mandatory system, automated data collection, and active postdischarge surveillance

“…75,173 Much has happened in the area of EHRs and data linkage since the 1980s and much is presently being done with regard to automated HAI case-finding, ranging from searching for codes in administrative or laboratory data to advanced computer algorithms which utilize several sources. definitions.…”