A digitalized nosocomial risk management framework during the COVID-19 pandemic: practice-based insights from a tertiary cancer hospital in Southwest China
- 1Department of Hospital Infection Control and Public Health, Sichuan Cancer Hospital, Chengdu, China
Abstract
Background: Cancer patients represent a particularly vulnerable population during infectious disease outbreaks, with substantially elevated risk of infection and mortality compared to the general population. Comprehensive nosocomial risk management frameworks for specialized oncology hospitals remain under-documented in the literature.
Methods: This community case study describes a comprehensive, multi-component epidemic risk management program implemented at Sichuan Cancer Hospital—the largest tertiary cancer hospital in Southwest China—from January 2020 to September 2022. The program integrated seven management pillars with a digital risk-reporting pipeline built on Questionnaire Star® and R programming language.
Results: Over the 32-month study period, the hospital achieved a 98% staff vaccination rate with 95% booster coverage. Following its deployment in August 2022, during the final weeks of the study period, the digital reporting system processed risk-investigation data and generated actionable summary tables within 5 min of submission. No nosocomial COVID-19 cases were detected among patients or staff during the surveillance period.
Conclusion: The experience demonstrates that systematic integration of management innovations with digital technologies can support hospital infection prevention even under extreme epidemiological pressure; the absence of detected nosocomial cases, however, cannot be causally attributed to the program alone given concurrent community-level restrictions. The framework’s pathogen-agnostic architecture supports transferability to future respiratory virus epidemics in cancer hospital settings.
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BibTeX
@article{tian2026digitalized,
title = {{A digitalized nosocomial risk management framework during the COVID-19 pandemic: practice-based insights from a tertiary cancer hospital in Southwest China}},
author = {Qingqing Tian and Qin Huang and Jiayang Tang and Anran Liu and Hui Wang and Weiwei Yang and Chunlin Wu},
journal = {Frontiers in Public Health},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.3389/fpubh.2026.1925119},
url = {https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2026.1925119},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - A digitalized nosocomial risk management framework during the COVID-19 pandemic: practice-based insights from a tertiary cancer hospital in Southwest China
AU - Qingqing Tian
AU - Qin Huang
AU - Jiayang Tang
AU - Anran Liu
AU - Hui Wang
AU - Weiwei Yang
AU - Chunlin Wu
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/12
JO - Frontiers in Public Health
DO - 10.3389/fpubh.2026.1925119
UR - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2026.1925119
AB - Background: Cancer patients represent a particularly vulnerable population during infectious disease outbreaks, with substantially elevated risk of infection and mortality compared to the general population. Comprehensive nosocomial risk management frameworks for specialized oncology hospitals remain under-documented in the literature. Methods: This community case study describes a comprehensive, multi-component epidemic risk management program implemented at Sichuan Cancer Hospital—the largest tertiary cancer hospital in Southwest China—from January 2020 to September 2022. The program integrated seven management pillars with a digital risk-reporting pipeline built on Questionnaire Star® and R programming language. Results: Over the 32-month study period, the hospital achieved a 98% staff vaccination rate with 95% booster coverage. Following its deployment in August 2022, during the final weeks of the study period, the digital reporting system processed risk-investigation data and generated actionable summary tables within 5 min of submission. No nosocomial COVID-19 cases were detected among patients or staff during the surveillance period. Conclusion: The experience demonstrates that systematic integration of management innovations with digital technologies can support hospital infection prevention even under extreme epidemiological pressure; the absence of detected nosocomial cases, however, cannot be causally attributed to the program alone given concurrent community-level restrictions. The framework’s pathogen-agnostic architecture supports transferability to future respiratory virus epidemics in cancer hospital settings.
SN - 2296-2565
ER -