C. difficile: Mapping Hospital Transmission

Researchers used spatial and temporal analytics to map transmission of hospital-acquired Clostridium difficile infection, publishing their findings in a research letter in JAMA Internal Medicine on October 23, 2017. The authors first used electronic health record (EHR) data to identify patients known to be positive for C. difficilein a large university hospital and tracked the movements of these patients through various areas of the hospital. They then sought to determine whether patients who had visited a "contaminated" space (defined as a space that a patient with C. difficile had visited within the previous 24 hours) had an increased 60-day risk of contracting the infection.