A Simulation Model to Compare Strategies for the Reduction of Health-Care--Associated Infections

Reidar Hagtvedt (), Paul Griffin (), Pınar Keskinocak () and Rebecca Roberts ()
Additional contact information
Reidar Hagtvedt: University of Alberta School of Business, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2R6, Canada
Paul Griffin: School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332
Pınar Keskinocak: School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332
Rebecca Roberts: Department of Emergency Medicine, Cook County Hospital, Chicago, Illinois 60612

Interfaces, 2009, vol. 39, issue 3, 256-270

Abstract: Cook County Hospital, like many hospitals in the United States and worldwide, is pursuing a strategy to combat health-care--associated infections (HAIs). In the United States, approximately two million people are infected each year and over 100,000 die. In this paper, an interdisciplinary team of researchers from Georgia Tech and Cook County Hospital, with backgrounds in engineering, economics, and medicine, analyze the flow of pathogens. We combine infection rates and cost data to build a discrete-event simulation model to capture the complex relationships between hand hygiene, isolation, demand, and costs. We find that both hand hygiene and isolation policies have a significant impact on rates of infection, and that a complex interplay between factors exists. This suggests that a systems-level approach to infection-control procedures will be required to contain health-care--associated infections.

Keywords: health care; health-care--associated infections; discrete-event simulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/inte.1090.0435 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:orinte:v:39:y:2009:i:3:p:256-270

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Interfaces from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().