Infection Surveillance Solutions Market Trends

Growth Drivers

• Growing adoption of antimicrobial stewardship programs: The goal of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC), is to reduce the rising number of HAIs. The threat to world health and development is antimicrobial resistance (AMR). According to the World Health Organization, AMR is one of the top ten worldwide public health hazards to humanity and it has a substantial financial impact on the world economy.
  
  Prolonged disease not only causes death and disability but also lengthens hospital stays, necessitates more expensive medications, and puts those affected financially at a disadvantage. As per a report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the adoption of AMS programs in conjunction with other policies aimed at curbing antibiotic overuse and enhancing hospital hygiene could potentially avert 1.6 million deaths and save USD 4.8 billion annually for the 33-member countries of the OECD.

• Increased incorporation of electronic hand hygiene monitoring systems: Hospitals can access extensive data sets about hand hygiene (HH) compliance among healthcare workers who wear badges due to electronic hand hygiene monitoring systems (EHHMSs). Even though direct observation of hand hygiene habits is still the gold standard recommended by the World Health Organization, it is labor-intensive, subject to bias from the Hawthorne effect, and produces a much smaller denominator than EHHMSs.
  
  All HH monitoring solutions have limitations, but many IP programs can benefit from the abundance of data that EHHMs provide. Studies indicate that EHHMSs have a high accuracy rate of over 87.2% and can improve HH compliance and IP programs with greater data sets of HH compliance.
• Technological advancements in IT infrastructure: Technological developments in IT systems combined with an increased capacity for analytical processing are making it easier to design analytical and infection surveillance solutions for use in the healthcare sector. These methods include fully automated HAI surveillance by utilizing clinical support-based knowledge that aids in the identification of specific clinical terms, specialized data mining tools, and the use of algorithms with electronic medical records. Staff members in clinical and health settings can now more easily comprehend surveillance software and how to use it due to several advancements in surveillance solutions. This leads to the creation of a competent workforce in the healthcare sector.

Challenges

• Inadequate data management: Inadequate data management produces inaccurate and insufficient information about a patient's medical history and treatment, which makes surveillance systems draw the wrong conclusions. This could make it more difficult to process patient data and surgery histories on time. Therefore, an inadequate data management system may impede the growth of the infection surveillance solutions market.
• High costs for small healthcare organizations: Healthcare IT software implementation is expensive as interoperability and deployment are expensive. Furthermore, software for monitoring infections is costly, and support and maintenance services, which comprise modifying and updating software to evolving user needs, serve as a recurrent expense that makes up a significant portion of the overall cost of ownership. Therefore, this factor will hamper the infection surveillance solutions market in the coming years.