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Data collection overburdens infection preventionists
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The burden of collecting and analyzing infection data in hospitals to comply with the reporting requirements of federal health agencies is “extensive,” according to findings presented at the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology annual meeting.
Infection preventionists may spend up to 5 hours and 8 minutes a day gathering infection data and completing reports, or as much as 118 hours per month, according to results presented at APIC by Sharon L. Parrillo, BSN, RN, CIC, assistant director of Infection Prevention at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Somerset in Somerville, New Jersey. According to a press release, Parrillo and colleagues calculated the time it took review lab data and complete reports for bloodstream, urinary tract, surgical site, methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus and Clostridium difficile infections for the 355-bed hospital based on a 5-day work week.
“Hospital-acquired infection (HAI) reporting exposes problems, drives improvements and allows for benchmarking against national targets. But without adequate staffing, the burden of reporting takes time away from infection prevention activities that protect patients at the bedside,” Parrillo said.
Infection preventionists are required to provide the reports generated from the data analysis to the CDC’s National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN), which is used by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for Medicare payment determination.
Sharon L. Parrillo
“I hope this study encourages lawmakers to consider the burden of infection preventionists’ time when new HAI reporting legislation is being considered and helps … other facilities start a conversation with their leadership about staffing and resources needed to ensure a safe environment for patients and staff,” Parrillo said. “Much of what I do involves sitting at a desk. It’s frustrating, because that’s not how I can prevent infections. We need to be able to do more rounding, more hand-hygiene observance, more preparedness and more staff education.”
The analysis performed by Parrillo and colleagues did not account for the time needed to complete state and local reporting of HAI, which is required of many facilities. In addition, the study was conducted when the hospital was at 60% capacity.
APIC 2015 President Mary Lou Manning, PhD, CRNP, CIC, FAAN, FNAP, said the study can assist infection preventionists in increasing productivity.
“This case report supports previous studies indicating that infection data collection, analysis and reporting continue to be one of the infection preventionist’s most time-consuming activities, even as their role expands in scope and responsibility,” said Manning in the press release. “IPs can use the results to begin to create a model for an adequately resourced infection prevention program, as well as explore alternative strategies such as automated surveillance systems.” – by Julia Ernst, MS
References:
Parrillo S. Abstract 030. Presented at: APIC Annual Meeting; June 27-29, 2015; Nashville.
Disclosure: Parrillo reports no relevant conflicts of interest related to this study.
Perspective
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Keith S. Kaye, MD, MPH
Infection preventionists have multiple responsibilities including surveillance, communicable disease reporting, environmental rounds and educating and informing health care providers regarding infection control issues. The burden of NHSN reporting has increased over the past few years and will continue to grow. Reporting is not easy or simple, particularly with regards to abstracting house-wide device days and surgical denominator data. The growing reporting burden is pulling infection preventionists away from grass roots infection prevention activities and hospital epidemiology and has, in some instances, turned infection preventionists into glorified bean counters. The NHSN vision is to ultimately be able to pull data directly from hospital EMRs, but this is years away. Until then, infection prevention departments and hospital administration have to balance traditional infection prevention roles and responsibilities which are critical to the mission of infection prevention, with its growing, increasingly burdensome reporting requirements.Click Here to Manage Email Alerts