We support hospitals to improve real-time infection monitoring, including COVID-19

We're supporting district health boards (DHBs) to improve their processes around infections such as COVID-19 by using the latest technology.

DHBs can detect, trace, and get information about infections through Baxter Healthcare's ICNET clinical surveillance platform, which we're supporting DHBs nationwide to access.

ICNET software is a frontline tool in hospital infection surveillance. It's essential to early detection of outbreaks of infectious diseases such as Norovirus, a common and very unpleasant gastro infection.

In March 2020, Baxter Healthcare developed new functionality for COVID-19 surveillance, which we supported DHBs to get access to at no cost.

Our Chief Clinical Officer and Head of Health Partnerships John Robson says: "ACC has a focus on working with our health sector partners to reduce the incidence and severity of infections through our treatment safety work programme.

"When COVID-19 began to impact Aotearoa we saw an opportunity to play our part by supporting DHBs to access ICNET, to strengthen their response to the pandemic.

"We're continuing to work with DHBs across the country to enable the use of this state-of-the-art surveillance technology to track and prevent infections and infectious diseases in hospitals and in the community."

Susan Wood, Director Quality and Patient Safety for both Canterbury DHB and the West Coast DHB, says that although the initial requirement was for software that would help with tracking and preventing 'everyday' hospital-acquired infections, they were always mindful since H1N1 flu hit in 2009, that they'd need to be able to capture real-time information in another pandemic.

"The updates to the software have advanced the use of the ICNET platform in Canterbury, putting it on the frontline of the region's hospitals' infection prevention and control COVID-19 surveillance and real-time response.

"Our partnership with ACC and Baxter has been crucial in enabling us to develop an expansion programme to build hospital infection prevention surveillance capability," says Susan.

For Hawke's Bay DHB, Racquel Lewis, Infection Prevention and Control Advisor, says: "ICNET was 'turned on' during the COVID-19 response and has provided a very useful tool for real-time reporting of those cases.

"It's been fantastic for the hospital space and the Public Health team, as well as our Occupational Health team for staff surveillance and swabs."

General Manager of Baxter Australia and New Zealand Steven Flynn says identifying and tracing had become a frontline defence during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"New Zealand is one of the first countries globally to rapidly deploy COVID-19 functionality to the ICNET network.

"The centralised tracing system of ICNET supports hospitals and national health systems in their COVID-19 response with data-driven analytics and real-time infection management.

"The ICNET system replaces traditional methods for managing infections including spreadsheets and time-consuming paperwork and supports hospitals and district health networks in reducing the costs associated with infection outbreaks."