Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine, Yongin Severance Hospital, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Yongin-si, Republic of Korea.
Division of Planning and Management, Office of Medical Information Technology, Yongin Severance Hospital, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Yongin-si, Republic of Korea.
J Med Internet Res. 2022 Oct 18;24(10):e41395. doi: 10.2196/41395.
There has been an increasing demand for new technologies regarding infection control in hospital settings to reduce the burden of contact tracing.
This study aimed to compare the validity of a real-time locating system (RTLS) with that of the conventional contact tracing method for identifying high-risk contact cases associated with the secondary transmission of SARS-CoV-2.
A retrospective case-control study involving in-hospital contact cases of confirmed COVID-19 patients, who were diagnosed from January 23 to March 25, 2022, was conducted at a university hospital in South Korea. Contact cases were identified using either the conventional method or the RTLS. The primary endpoint of this study was secondary transmission of SARS-CoV-2 among contact cases. Univariate and multivariable logistic regression analysis comparing test positive and versus negative contact cases were performed.
Overall, 509 and 653 cases were confirmed by the conventional method and the RTLS, respectively. Only 74 contact cases were identified by both methods, which could be attributed to the limitations of each method. Sensitivity was higher for the RTLS tracing method (653/1088, 60.0%) than the conventional tracing method (509/1088, 46.8%) considering all contact cases identified by both methods. The secondary transmission rate in the RTLS model was 8.1%, while that in the conventional model was 5.3%. The multivariable logistic regression model revealed that the RTLS was more capable of detecting secondary transmission than the conventional method (adjusted odds ratio 6.15, 95% CI 1.92-28.69; P=.007).
This study showed that the RTLS is beneficial when used as an adjunctive approach to the conventional method for contact tracing associated with secondary transmission. However, the RTLS cannot completely replace traditional contact tracing.
为了减轻接触者追踪的负担，医院环境中对感染控制新技术的需求不断增加。
本研究旨在比较实时定位系统（RTLS）与传统接触者追踪方法在识别与 SARS-CoV-2 二次传播相关的高风险接触者方面的有效性。
在韩国的一家大学医院进行了一项回顾性病例对照研究，涉及 2022 年 1 月 23 日至 3 月 25 日期间确诊的 COVID-19 患者的院内接触者。使用传统方法或 RTLS 识别接触者。本研究的主要终点是接触者中 SARS-CoV-2 的二次传播。对阳性和阴性接触者进行单变量和多变量逻辑回归分析。
总体而言，传统方法和 RTLS 分别确认了 509 例和 653 例病例。仅通过两种方法确定了 74 例接触者病例，这归因于每种方法的局限性。考虑到通过两种方法都能确定的所有接触者病例，RTLS 追踪方法的敏感性（653/1088，60.0%）高于传统追踪方法（509/1088，46.8%）。RTLS 模型中的二次传播率为 8.1%，而传统模型中的二次传播率为 5.3%。多变量逻辑回归模型显示，RTLS 比传统方法更能检测二次传播（调整后的优势比 6.15，95%置信区间 1.92-28.69；P=0.007）。
本研究表明，RTLS 作为传统接触追踪方法的辅助方法用于与二次传播相关的接触追踪是有益的。然而，RTLS 不能完全取代传统的接触追踪。
