Web-based information services for the nationwide model project against hospital infection

Nobuyuki Ashida
Koshien University

Tadamasa Takemura
Department of Medical Informatics and Administration Planning, Kyoto University Hospital, Kyoto, Japan

Teruo Kirikae
Research Institute, International Medical Center of Japan

Kiyoko Makimoto
Osaka University, School of Allied Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine

Topic: Public (e-)health, population health technologies, surveillance
Track: Practice
Type: Poster presentation

     Full text: Not available
     Slides: Not Available
     Last modified: March 30, 2006

Abstract
Introduction: The Internet has been increasing its importance as an information collection tool. Nevertheless, reliable and good web sites tend to contain a massive amount of information and have complicated structures, which provides poor accessibility of desired information. We promoted the nationwide model project against hospital infection with the aims of 1) establishing the system for medical institutions so that they can consult specialists on a daily basis about hospital infection prevention through the specialized consultation service desks which are set up in different regions, and 2) connecting these regional desks with the International Medical Center of Japan with intent to transfer consulted cases online to the center so that the cases can be gathered to construct the system which is designed to provide information about remedies and safeguards. In Japan, it is difficult to have hospital infection cases reported, but, many research papers about hospital infection are written overseas. We extracted and summarized those anecdotal reports to create a database for Web-based information provision. This study is to report such Internet-based information gathering and provision for hospital infection prevention.

Method: The following three systems were constructed to gather and provide information about hospital infection prevention on the Web.
1. Nosocomial infection report system to gather consultation cases nationwide
2. Database of summaries of papers on nosocomial infection
3. Reliable search engine which specializes in hospital infection

Result: The nosocomial infection report system of Item 1 is operated only among registered institutions. The systems of Item 2 and 3 which are designed for web applications are experimentally operated at the following address. http://www.health-db.net/infection/index.asp
Moreover, the text analysis was performed on the contents which contained particular sentences. Coded data acquired from such contents were used for searches and the cross-disciplinary survey.

Discussion: Many manuals have been developed based on the CDC guideline in recognition of importance of preventive measures against hospital infection as a part of medical risk control. But, it is pointed out that the majority of them are like schoolbooks and require further decision to be made in the field without providing adequate instructions. It is also pointed out that they do not always provide a clear "definition of infection" which immediately becomes necessary in developing safeguards and remedies to "do what in which case." Prevention of hospital infection inevitably requires not only manuals but also the knowledge-based applications in selecting a solution based on cases. Gathering information from many web sites is also necessary in addition to gathering case examples, however, it frequently takes time to verify the reliability of information (if it is an official announcement, knowledge, or a personal view) when such information is obtained on the web site which is hit by a versatile search engine. Therefore, the development of a reliable, specialized search engine is desired.