Building an Interactive Geospatial Visualization Application for National Health Care-Associated Infection...

Area of Science:

• Public Health Surveillance
• Geospatial Analysis
• Health Informatics

Background:

• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) is a leading surveillance program for healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) and antimicrobial resistance in the U.S.
• Over 37,000 healthcare facilities contribute extensive surveillance data to NHSN.
• NHSN data are crucial for infection prevention, antimicrobial stewardship, and quality measurement, with standardized infection ratios identifying prevention needs.

Purpose of the Study:

• To enhance the utility of NHSN data through the integration of geospatial methods and tools.
• To promote novel data analysis and prevention strategies by enabling integrated visualization of HAI metrics and supporting data.

Main Methods:

• Developed a web-enabled system utilizing readily available geocoding and visualization technologies.
• Implemented a server-client model allowing web browser access to the application.
• Integrated multiple datasets into a single-page dashboard for user-friendly navigation and data display.

Main Results:

• The system enables users to explore various HAI event types and select specific geographic locations or healthcare facilities for data visualization.
• Users can adjust data displays across different time units within specified periods.
• The system was launched for internal CDC use in January 2019.

Conclusions:

• NHSNViz was developed in response to identified needs by CDC NHSN statisticians, data analysts, and subject matter experts.
• The system underwent iterative development with user feedback, incorporating additional datasets and functionality.
• The initial production version of NHSNViz offers a new geospatial analytic resource, designed for extensibility to future users and applications.