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Monday, August 25, 2008: 4:10 PM
International B
Public health practitioners may be frustrated by the inflexibility of their information technology (IT) tools, or by their dependence on IT personnel to manage and modify a tool. The Utah Facility Online Reporting System (UFORS) provides an example how IT development can empower practitioners.
UFORS was developed in response to a Utah Rule requiring hospitals to report central line associated blood stream infections (CLA-BSI) and influenza vaccination rates for health care workers. The UFORS surveillance system was designed to monitor statewide trends, define the scope of the healthcare associated infection (HAI) problem in Utah, provide public accountability, and establish baseline rates for HAI improvement activities. Hospitals are required to report two items quarterly:
1. Number of central line days per intensive care unit
2. Number of CLA-BSI per intensive care unit (ICU)
Annually, the following are reported for derivation of influenza vaccination rates:
1. Number of employed healthcare workers
2. Number of employed healthcare workers with documented influenza vaccination
UFORS is a "practitioner-controlled" web application. State epidemiologists have administrative rights to configure functionality, content, reporting requirement/definition, and information display. UFORS allows practitioner administrators to modify the application to meet new reporting and monitoring needs. The IT engineer, epidemiologists, and practitioners worked together to design the reporting pages and content for the system. The IT engineer built the architecture and system framework.
No applets are needed to run the system, so no software is loaded to the client. A client-based approach is used in the practitioner administration rather than a conventional client-server based method. This reduces web requests from client to server, which enables faster data entry. UFORS is open-source software, written in PHP MySQL, allowing portability for other users. The system can be quickly adapted to meet new needs; new modules can be uploaded within one week.
UFORS was developed in response to a Utah Rule requiring hospitals to report central line associated blood stream infections (CLA-BSI) and influenza vaccination rates for health care workers. The UFORS surveillance system was designed to monitor statewide trends, define the scope of the healthcare associated infection (HAI) problem in Utah, provide public accountability, and establish baseline rates for HAI improvement activities. Hospitals are required to report two items quarterly:
1. Number of central line days per intensive care unit
2. Number of CLA-BSI per intensive care unit (ICU)
Annually, the following are reported for derivation of influenza vaccination rates:
1. Number of employed healthcare workers
2. Number of employed healthcare workers with documented influenza vaccination
UFORS is a "practitioner-controlled" web application. State epidemiologists have administrative rights to configure functionality, content, reporting requirement/definition, and information display. UFORS allows practitioner administrators to modify the application to meet new reporting and monitoring needs. The IT engineer, epidemiologists, and practitioners worked together to design the reporting pages and content for the system. The IT engineer built the architecture and system framework.
No applets are needed to run the system, so no software is loaded to the client. A client-based approach is used in the practitioner administration rather than a conventional client-server based method. This reduces web requests from client to server, which enables faster data entry. UFORS is open-source software, written in PHP MySQL, allowing portability for other users. The system can be quickly adapted to meet new needs; new modules can be uploaded within one week.
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