GermAlert has been developed to assist the Infection Control Departments of Barnes and Jewish Hospitals (teaching hospitals affiliated with the university) with their infection control activities. These activities include surveillance of microbiology cultures data.

Most hospitals have infection control programs, which are aimed at the early detection and aggressive treatment of infections. The earlier an infection is discovered and treated, the less likely it is to spread to other patients and hospital staff and the less likely it is to prolong the infected patient’s stay in the hospital. The expert system called GermAlert applies local hospital culture-based criteria for detecting “significant” infections, which require immediate treatment. GermAlert has been deployed at Barnes Hospital, a large tertiary-care teaching hospital, since February 1993. It was later deployed at the neighboring Jewish Hospital in July 1995. Microbiology culture data from the hospital’s laboratory system are monitored by GermAlert. Using a rulebase consisting of criteria developed by local infectious diseases experts, GermAlert scans the culture data and generates an “alert” to the infection control staff when a culture representing a “significant” infection is detected.

GermAlert is a hospital based system.

Washington University School of Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Medical Informatics, 660 South Euclid Campus Box, 8005 St. Louis, Missouri, 63110 USA, Phone: (314) 454-8651.