EHRs can help clinicians identify routes of transmission among hospitalized patients during a healthcare-associated infection outbreak, according to a study published in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology.
Researchers retrospectively analyzed nine hospital outbreaks that occurred between 2011 and 2016.
They found data mining EHRs could have helped caregivers identify the correct routes of transmission for all outbreaks at the second patient. Only one outbreak, which had more than one transmission route, would have been identified at the eighth patient.
The study also shows that had data mining been implemented in real time, it could have prevented up to 40 infections in most of the outbreaks, provided an effective intervention was initiated seven days after the transmission route was identified.