Abstract
Hospital acquired infections (HAIs) can have a serious impact on both clinical and economic outcomes. As a result, hospitals implement infection control (IC) policies to prevent and reduce the transmission of HAIs including various approaches to screening and testing incoming or admitted patients. Early identification of HAIs is key to limiting their clinical and economic impact. Molecular diagnostics (MDx) have the potential to improve IC strategies by quickly and accurately identifying patients with suspected or confirmed infections. To increase adoption of this technology, both MDx manufacturers and hospital quality stakeholders have expressed interest in value-based contracting for HAI tests. To further understand this opportunity, this research sought to identify key IC practices that would be impacted by MDx testing and could support improved HAI outcomes. Telephone-based primary research was conducted with 34 hospital quality and IC stakeholders across the US and UK to understand the impact of HAIs, current IC practices, quality metrics, outcomes and opportunities for MDx. Desk research was carried out to further investigate hospital IC strategies and reporting metrics. Hospitals have implemented a variety of strategies aimed at reducing and preventing the incidence of HAIs. Hospitals assess the success of their IC strategies by benchmarking their infection rates against national or regional reports and measuring compliance with certain IC protocols. There are various IC practices that could be impacted by MDx testing such as patient isolation and timely administration of targeted antibiotic therapy; however, metrics associated with these protocols are generally not reported. Primary and secondary research findings suggest that compliance with IC protocols is critical to improving HAI outcomes. Expanding hospital quality reporting metrics to include factors impacted by MDx could support value-based contracting efforts by associating testing with improved IC practices, and will ultimately support improved HAI outcomes.
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