Contact Tracing: Breaking Transmission Chains with SwipeSense
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the crucial role contact tracing plays in the timely implementation of safety interventions for hospitals and healthcare settings. In the past, contact tracing was a vital intervention in containing and reducing the spread of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and the Ebola virus.
Public health authorities, like the World Health Organization (WHO), have recommended contact tracing as a significant measure to prevent disease transmission. In response to these strong recommendations, healthcare leadership has rapidly integrated new technology into their contact tracing processes to track and prevent the spread of infection, streamline data for hospital administration, and strengthen the culture of safety in hospitals.
The Limitations of Manual Contact Tracing
Manual contact tracing can be an effective and insightful public health tool. Its flexibility allows for identifying infectious disease outbreaks in various community settings and scenarios. However, manual contact tracing struggles to meet the demands of timely identification during high case numbers, requiring significant resources and time.
The challenge becomes particularly acute as cases multiply exponentially—each infected person can potentially expose dozens of others, who in turn may expose dozens more, creating a rapid cascade that quickly overwhelms manual tracking capabilities. This exponential growth often means contact tracers fall further and further behind, compromising their ability to intervene effectively in transmission chains.
Furthermore, its effectiveness can be compromised by individuals’ inability to accurately recall all their recent contacts and interactions. This limitation in human memory can result in incomplete and inefficient reporting, potentially allowing some transmission chains to go undetected.
Leveraging Technology for Efficient Contact Tracing
Technology-based contact tracing solutions directly address these manual limitations through automated, real-time data collection and analysis. Unlike manual processes that struggle with exponential case growth and memory limitations, digital systems can instantly track and record interactions, maintain accurate timestamps, and process large volumes of contact data without delay.
An automated approach ensures no interactions are missed or forgotten, while dramatically reducing the time and resources needed for effective contact tracing. The SwipeSense Contact Tracing application, for example, turns the complex challenge of hospital contact tracing into a streamlined, automated process. The platform’s advanced sensor network efficiently gathers data points from various location sensors, providing extensive insights for healthcare leadership to swiftly identify at-risk individuals and equipment.
A technology-driven contact tracing platform strengthens infection prevention infrastructure through these four essential capabilities:
1. Enabling Early Identification
SwipeSense’s platform automates critical aspects of contact tracing using a sensor network integrated into caregiver badges, asset tags, and hand hygiene sensors. It helps quickly identify at-risk individuals and implements infection control policies to minimize transmission between staff members and patients.
Whether tracking C. diff, RSV, Monkey Pox, or any other transmissible illness, the SwipeSense system can trace exposure patterns for any employee wearing a badge or assigned to a room in the EMR. This universal tracking capability means infection preventionists can rapidly respond to any outbreak scenario, mapping potential exposures using either real-time badge location data or historical EMR room assignments.
2. Breaking the Chain of Transmission
Improper hand hygiene leads to 1.7 million hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) annually. However, the SwipeSense Hand Hygiene application can play a crucial role in breaking the chain of transmission by monitoring individual and unit hand hygiene practices. It tracks which staff members visited specific rooms and identifies lapses in hand hygiene, empowering management to determine the initial source of an infection outbreak.
SwipeSense can also toggle between hand sanitizer and soap monitoring depending on the infectious disease and isolation parameters. For example, washing hands with soap and water is necessary for C-diff. This adaptability makes SwipeSense a versatile, customizable tool that meets the specific challenges of healthcare settings, from general wards to isolation units.
3. Enhancing Surveillance and Monitoring
SwipeSense’s sensor network automatically transfers data to an easy-to-read dashboard, improving unit surveillance and monitoring. By reporting location in real-time, badge reels and asset tags help eliminate exposure gaps and proactively protect employees and patients by facilitating timely testing and quarantining.
Similarly, SwipeSense can track Environmental Services and Ancillary Services to monitor exposure times in contaminated rooms and ensure that staff spends sufficient time cleaning and disinfecting rooms and equipment.
4. Ensuring Safe and Secure Data Handling
SwipeSense collects only necessary data, such as proximity information or timestamps, to safeguard privacy and adhere to data protection regulations and standards set by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
SwipeSense’s infrastructure ensures that no personal health information (PHI) is collected from patients or employees and ensures that identities are not directly tied to information shared within the dashboard. This commitment to privacy and data security makes SwipeSense a trusted and reliable tool for healthcare institutions.
Preparing for Future Health Challenges
As contact tracing becomes a standard of care, hospitals and other healthcare settings increasingly rely on electronic solutions to reduce the transmission of COVID-19 and other healthcare-associated infections. These insights are invaluable when understanding how infections spread and implementing preventative measures promptly to protect frontline healthcare workers and their communities.
SwipeSense’s platform gives healthcare leadership and institutions flexible surveillance so teams are prepared with the necessary infrastructure to prevent widespread transmission when the next flu season hits or a new pandemic-level threat emerges.
For more information and to see how SwipeSense can enhance safety and infection prevention in your institution, click here: SwipeSense & Contact Tracing.