A method of assessing the efficacy of hand sanitizers: use of real soil encountered in the food service industry.

In many outbreaks of foodborne illness, the food worker has been implicated as the source of the infection. To decrease the likelihood of cross-contamination, food workers must clean and disinfect their hands frequently. To ensure their effectiveness, hand disinfectants should be tested using rigorous conditions that mimic normal use. Currently, several different methods are used to assess the efficacy of hand disinfectants. However, most of these methods were designed with the health care worker in mind and do not model the specific contamination situations encountered by the food worker. To fill this void, we developed a model that uses soil from fresh meat and a means of quantifying bacteria that is encountered and transferred during food preparation activities. Results of studies using various doses of para-chloro-meta-xylenol and triclosan confirm that the method is reproducible and predictable in measuring the efficacy of sanitizers. Consistent, dose-dependent results were obtained with relatively few subjects. Other studies showed that washing hands with a mild soap and water for 20 s was more effective than applying a 70% alcohol hand sanitizer.

Automated classification of encounter notes in a computer based medical record.

Harvard Community Health Plan is exploring emerging information technologies for means to use the text portion of its 25 year old computerized medical record system. The Center for Intelligent Information Retrieval is developing systems to answer the question: to what extent can automated information systems replace manual chart review of encounter notes? INQUERY, a probabilistic inference net information retrieval system, and FIGLEAF, an inductive decision tree text classifier are applied to the problem of classifying electronic encounter notes to identify acute exacerbations in pediatric asthmatics. Both systems achieve average precisions of greater than 80%, with a new enhancement to INQUERY's relevance feedback, the top performer. Refinement of the systems and plans for their integration are discussed.