CONTROLLING HOSPITAL-ASSOCIATED ROTAVIRUS INFECTION: AN INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING APPROACH

摘要

Rotavirus infects virtually all children during the first five years of life in both developed and developing countries and is one of the most common causes of severe diarrhea, resulting in hospitalization, emergency room visits, and outpatient clinic visits. Rotavirus is also one of the most common causes of hospital-associated gastroenteritis. Alcohol hand gel appears to be more effective against Rotavirus than standard hand-washing with soap and water and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommends the use of alcohol hand gel as the primary means for hand hygiene except when hands are visibly soiled. Still, it has not been possible to control the incidences of Rotavirus effectively. Preventive measures are highly dependent on the human behavior, and humans are vulnerable to errors. Merely developing the interventions and expecting humans to follow these interventions is not practicable due to the high workload and the stressful work environment in a hospital setting. Ideally, systems should be robust in such a way that humans are least prone to making errors. It is a time for pediatric hospitals to look beyond the traditional infection control methods and adopt industrial engineering approaches to deal with nosocomially acquired Rotavirus infection. The objective of this study is to develop a robust methodology using industrial engineering approaches with an end goal of establishing a detailed set of interventions, which are the least sensitive to human performance. An integrated system approach combining waste elimination techniques, continuous improvement methods and statistical quality control techniques is developed. In addition, there is a focus on incorporating cognitive theories used to manage concurrent tasks in highly stressful environment in order to eliminate human errors.