Using Analytics for Antimicrobial Stewardship

A medication management platform is using analytics and patient diagnoses to cultivate antimicrobial stewardship. The goal of the platform’s new functionality is to combat antimicrobial resistance in patients, and to help ease the costly burden of health care associated infections.¹

Created by BD, a medical technology company, BD HealthSight Clinical Advisor identifies potentially inappropriate and ineffective antibiotic prescribing based on aggregated data from across the cloud-based BD HealthSight application. The Clinical Advisor program detects potential issues with antibiotic prescribing and sends near real-time alerts to health care providers through means that include mobile devices.¹

According to Clint Pridgen, Platform Leader, MedMined Surveillance Services, BD, the Clinical Advisor’s artificial intelligence chooses disparate information deemed most critical and relevant. That information is dispatched to various members of a health care team, including pharmacists, nurses, and physicians.

“It’s bringing pharmacy and nursing closer together,” said Pridgen, in an interview with Pharmacy Times.

According to Fares Khater, MD, system director of infectious diseases at Appalachian Regional Healthcare Corporation, Clinical Advisor alerts enable staff to make more informed decisions quickly, potentially improving patient outcomes by avoiding specific antibiotics that might be inappropriate for that individual.¹

“One of the key weapons in the fight against the growing problem of drug resistant bacteria is effective antimicrobial stewardship in hospitals. Using available antimicrobials appropriately is the only way to maintain their effectiveness long term and avoid collateral damage, which in turn has the ability to help reduce health care associated infections,” Khater said, in a press release.¹

In addition to helping health care providers prevent administration of inappropriate antibiotics to patients, the Clinical Advisor helps avoid potential waste of resources associated with compounding and preparing unnecessary medication for delivery. The stewardship program is supported with customized dashboards, reports, and the ability to automate the submission of antimicrobial utilization data for regulatory reporting.¹

According to BD, its AMR strategy includes engagement and collaboration with leading health agencies, foundations, and other organizations around the world to deploy training initiatives, information systems, and medical technology that support programs in hospitals and laboratories. Capabilities in the BD HealthSight platform include data mining technology that creates an early warning system to detect infection anomalies before an outbreak occurs, and tools for health care facilities to easily report infection data electronically to public health authorities, helping them to monitor and identify local, regional and national trends. ¹

The BD HealthSight platform was introduced in 2017. The software system was designed to support medication management by assisting with drug diversion investigations, according to the company.² However, the program is not only about theft, according to the company.

“It’s also about practice,” said Thomas Utech, PharmD, Worldwide Vice President, Global Solution Management & Marketing, Medication Management Solutions, BD, in an interview with Pharmacy Times. “There’s a lot of opportunity for errors to happen.”

In addition to an investigation workflow that monitors, triages, and assigns potential diversion cases to specific investigators, BD HealthSight builds a community of users. It leverages data from the company’s connected products, and the Electronic Medical Record to help improve efficiencies and outcomes, as well as allowing health care professionals more time to focus on patient care.²

The new functionality, BD HealthSight Clinical Advisor, was recently demonstrated to pharmacy professionals at the ASHP (American Society of Health-System Pharmacists) 54th Midyear Clinical Meeting & Exhibition in Las Vegas, Nevada.

REFERENCES

• BD Launches Enhanced Antimicrobial Stewardship Analytics Capabilities [news release]. Franklin Lakes, NJ; November 21, 2019: BD website. https://www.bd.com/en-us/company/news-and-media/press-releases/november-21-2019-bd-launches-enhanced-antimicrobial-stewardship-analytics-capabilities Accessed February 7, 2020.
• Coppock K. Technology Aims to Prevent Drug Diversion. Pharmacy Times website. https://www.pharmacytimes.com/conferences/ashpmidyear2018/technology-aims-to-prevent-drug-diversion. Published January 30, 2019. Accessed February 7, 2020.