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Patients as Patches: Ecology and Epidemiology in Healthcare Environments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 October 2016

Eric T. Lofgren ,
Andrea M. Egizi  and
Nina H. Fefferman
Eric T. Lofgren
Affiliation:
Paul G. Allen School for Global Animal Health, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington Community Health Analytics Initiative, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington The Command, Control and Interoperability Center for Advanced Data Analysis (CCICADA), Piscataway, New Jersey
Andrea M. Egizi
Affiliation:
Tick-Borne Disease Laboratory, Monmouth County Mosquito Control Division, Tinton Falls, New Jersey Center for Vector Biology, Department of Entomology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey
Nina H. Fefferman*
Affiliation:
The Command, Control and Interoperability Center for Advanced Data Analysis (CCICADA), Piscataway, New Jersey Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee
*
Address correspondence to Nina H. Fefferman, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, 569 Dabney Hall, Knoxville, TN 37996-1610 (feffermn@dimacs.rutgers.edu).
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Abstract

The modern healthcare system involves complex interactions among microbes, patients, providers, and the built environment. It represents a unique and challenging setting for control of the emergence and spread of infectious diseases. We examine an extension of the perspectives and methods from ecology (and especially urban ecology) to address these unique issues, and we outline 3 examples: (1) viewing patients as individual microbial ecosystems; (2) the altered ecology of infectious diseases specifically within hospitals; and (3) ecosystem management perspectives for infection surveillance and control. In each of these cases, we explore the accuracy and relevance of analogies to existing urban ecological perspectives, and we demonstrate a few of the potential direct uses of this perspective for altering research into the control of healthcare-associated infections.

Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol. 2016;1507–1512

Type
Commentaries
Information
Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology , Volume 37 , Issue 12 , December 2016 , pp. 1507 - 1512
Copyright
© 2016 by The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America. All rights reserved 

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