Enhanced, Personalized, and Integrated Care for Infection Management
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Enhanced, Personalized and Integrated Care for Infection Management at the Point-Of-Care (EPIC IMPOC)
IRAS ID
204949
Contact name
Alison H Holmes
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 6 months, 10 days
Research summary
Antimicrobials (drugs that kill or stop the growth of microorganisms including bacteria, thereby treating infections) commonly used to treat patients with infections are becoming less effective over time as bacteria develop resistance to them. Antimicrobial usage itself can lead to development and spread of antimicrobial resistance. Antimicrobial resistance is now a major threat to patient safety. To conserve the effectiveness of antimicrobials we need to develop ways to use them more sensibly healthcare professionals who diagnose and treat infections must be able to access antimicrobial guidelines and test results at the patient bedside. This needs to be provided rapidly and with support to make sure that the decisions on prescribing antimicrobials are the best that can be made.
Prototype software to achieve this has been developed through collaboration between healthcare professionals and biomedical engineers. This prototype software (run on a mobile device) retrieves patient results from various laboratory and clinical databases (securely within the Trust firewall) and displays this to the clinician making the prescribing decision. Furthermore a machine learning algorithm is applied to the data, and similar anonymised historical cases (and the antimicrobials prescribed and the clinical outcomes) are also displayed to the clinician to further inform their decision making. The prototype has been designed for use in intensive care, where the risk of infection is high, but through the research project detailed here, the software will be developed and tested as a proof-of-concept across other areas of hospital patient care. Furthermore there is a key need to engage patients with how decisions are made around antimicrobial prescribing. We propose to adapt the prototype to meet these needs. This system should improve patient safety and help preserve the effectiveness of existing antimicrobials.
REC name
London - Chelsea Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/LO/0047
Date of REC Opinion
20 Feb 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion