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An infectious illness detection platform developed by College of Pittsburgh scientists working with UPMC an infection preventionists proved over a two-year trial that it stops outbreaks, saves lives and cuts prices.
The outcomes are revealed within the journal Scientific Infectious Illnesses, making the case for adoption in hospitals nationwide and the event of a nationwide early outbreak detection database.
“We saved lives while saving money. This isn’t theoretical—this happened in a real hospital with real patients,” mentioned lead writer Alexander Sundermann, Dr.P.H., assistant professor of infectious illnesses in Pitt’s Faculty of Drugs. “And it could easily be scaled. The more hospitals implement this practice, the more everyone benefits, not just by stopping previously undetected outbreaks within the walls of the hospital, but by finding medical device or medication-linked outbreaks sweeping the nation.”
The Enhanced Detection System for Healthcare-Related Transmission (EDS-HAT) takes benefit of more and more inexpensive genomic sequencing to research infectious illness samples from sufferers. When the sequencing detects that any two or extra sufferers have near-identical strains of an an infection, it flags the outcomes for the hospital’s an infection prevention staff to seek out the commonality and cease the transmission.
With out genomic sequencing, hospital an infection preventionists don’t have any method of understanding if two hospitalized sufferers coincidentally have the identical an infection or if one in every of them was contaminated by the opposite. Due to this, sufferers with the identical kind of an infection who do not have an apparent hyperlink—equivalent to staying in the identical inpatient unit—could unknowingly unfold the an infection, resulting in an outbreak rising considerably earlier than it’s detected.
Conversely, an infection preventionists could spend time and sources attempting to avert a nonexistent outbreak when sufferers occur to have the identical kind of an infection, however the transmission was from unrelated sources.
The research ran from November 2021 by way of October 2023 at UPMC Presbyterian Hospital. Throughout that point, the evaluation confirmed that EDS-HAT prevented 62 infections and 5 deaths, in comparison with if the system had not been working. It netted a financial savings of practically $700,000 in an infection therapy prices—a 3.2-fold return on funding.
“These results are remarkable,” mentioned co-author Graham Snyder, M.D., M.S., medical director of an infection prevention and hospital epidemiology at UPMC. “This project clearly illustrates how UPMC’s academic partnership with Pitt is providing our patients with outstanding patient care while creating innovative solutions that pave the way for better patient care worldwide.”
If well being care services throughout the U.S. undertake EDS-HAT, a nationwide outbreak system may very well be developed, much like PulseNet, the U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention’s community for detecting multistate outbreaks of foodborne sickness. Sundermann and colleagues beforehand discovered that, had such a system existed, the 2023 outbreak of lethal micro organism linked to contaminated eye drops might have been stopped far earlier.
“It is a no-brainer to implement EDS-HAT at every health care facility nationwide,” mentioned senior writer Lee Harrison, M.D., professor of infectious illnesses at Pitt’s Faculty of Drugs and of epidemiology at Pitt’s Faculty of Public Well being. “We hope these findings will contribute to ongoing conversations among U.S. health care leadership, payors and policymakers about the benefits of genomic surveillance as standard practice in health care.”
Extra authors of this analysis are Praveen Kumar, Ph.D., Marissa P. Griffith, Kady D. Waggle, M.S., Vatsala Rangachar Srinivasa, M.P.H., Nathan Raabe, M.P.H., Emma G. Mills, Hunter Coyle, Deena Ereifej, M.P.H., Hanna M. Creager, Ph.D., Ashley Ayres, M.B.A., Daria Van Tyne, Ph.D., Lora Lee Pless, Ph.D., and Mark Roberts, M.D., all of Pitt, UPMC or each.
Extra data:
Alexander J Sundermann et al, Actual-Time Genomic Surveillance for Enhanced Healthcare Outbreak Detection and Management: Scientific and Financial Influence, Scientific Infectious Illnesses (2025). DOI: 10.1093/cid/ciaf216
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Hospital-based outbreak detection system stops outbreaks, saves lives (2025, April 28)
retrieved 28 April 2025
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