Modeling Infectious Disease Transmission in Hospitals
The transfer of pathogens between patients and health care workers in a hospital is an important consideration in developing hospital policies and procedures. Hospitals may implement one or more mitigation strategies (e.g. gloves and other barriers, isolation of patients, hand hygiene products or procedures) to reduce the incidences of infection due to pathogen transfer.
These mitigation strategies are implemented in a very complex and dynamic environment. Computer simulation of the transmission and mitigation processes can improve our understanding of exactly how the system generates and propagates risk and how to most effectively manage it.
GoldSim was used to model the transfer of pathogens between patients and health care workers in a hospital. The model generated simulated outbreaks in hospital wards, where the onset, extent of spread, and control of the outbreak is a manifestation of natural variability and the impact of simulated control strategies.