by
Loren Bonner, DOTmed News Online Editor | July 20, 2012
From the July 2012 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
“What was obvious to me was the natural place for the compliance system: the nurse call system as opposed to the back of the IT department or biomed department. The nurse call system is mandated and you already have the infrastructure in place to care for and service it,” says Tenarvitz.
CenTrak, another RTLS company headquartered in Newtown, Pa., which offers a hand hygiene compliance system—part of its “open infrastructure”— connects to the nurse call system and can automatically cancel a call when the nurse enters the room. CenTrak’s president and CEO, Ari Naim, says that’s important for workflow, but also for infection control because workers don’t have to put their hands on a button.
AeroScout, which is now a part of Stanley Healthcare Solution (a division of Stanley Black & Decker), introduced its Wi-Fi based RTLS system with hand hygiene monitoring capabilities at HIMSS 2012.
“We were getting customers saying, ‘Can you help us?’” says Charlotte Miller, director of nursing informatics for AeroScout.
According to Miller, facilities were asking for a way to merge the technology offered for nurse call integration with hand hygiene monitoring.
A new agenda for hospital infection control
Although hospitals across the country have made concerted efforts to decrease incidents of HAIs in recent years, key components under health care reform are forcing many hospitals to refocus their strategies.
“In some cases, hospitals are prepared for this. Infection control was an area where they felt they were doing quite well. But now it’s about putting stringent protocols and processes in place to ensure that everyone is marching on the same path,” says Lisa Fox, vice president of strategic syndicated research and data audits for Healthcare Research & Analytics.
The health care marketing firm’s most recent study looked at how hospitals are preparing for certain provisions under the 2010 health care law.
“Although the legislation is under debate, you still have a number of requirements hospitals have been forced to adhere to starting now,” says Fox. “We looked at hospitals as the channel that are going to get hit first and in some ways hardest by a lot of the changes under the Affordable Care Act, including penalties for HAI readmission and value-based purchasing.”
Value-based purchasing under health care reform, which kicks in this October, is a top concern for hospitals, according to the study. The reimbursement scheme rewards or penalizes hospitals across 12 key quality measures, four of which focus on HAIs. For example, Medicare will reduce payments to hospitals with poor infection rates in their intensive care units, beginning this year.
