Dive Brief:
- InformationWeek reports that an Indiana hospital's use of health IT helped to contain the first outbreak of Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome in the U.S.
- When a patient was diagnosed with MERS, Community Hospital used real-time locating system badges for patients, staff and visitors to determine who had come into contact with the patient so they could be tested for MERS. The hospital also used EMR and video surveillance systems to see who had visited or treated the patient.
- All 50 of the individuals who had been in contact with the patient tested negative for the virus, but the affected individuals were still monitored daily for 14 days, and the employees were retested before being allowed to return to work.
Dive Insight:
It seems that Community Hospital dodged a bullet in this case: A second case of MERS was diagnosed in the U.S. this week. The hospital is working with the CDC develop a paper to share best practices about containing MERS, according to InformationWeek.