PITTSBURGH, Aug. 15, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- PITTSBURGH (August 15, 2022) -- Infectious Disease Connect announced today that it is expanding its powerful platform for antimicrobial stewardship and infectious diseases (ID) decision making to support hospitals in the UPMC Central Pa. region. UPMC Harrisburg, UPMC West Shore, UPMC Carlisle, UPMC Community Osteopathic, UPMC Hanover, UPMC Lititz, and UPMC Memorial hospitals will join the 22 other UPMC facilities already using ID Connect’s ILÚM Insight® solution to improve care and lower costs for ID patients.
The partnership expansion comes after investigators from UPMC Presbyterian’s Antibiotic Management Program reported improved antibiotic use and decreased costs in a six-month post ILÚM Insight® implementation study. When compared to the same six-month period in the prior year the team noted:
- Total antimicrobial expenditures decreased by a median of 21% per month
- An overall 14.5% decrease in antimicrobial days of therapy per 1,000 patient days
- Improved efficiency in stewardship operations and an increased number of stewardship interventions in the first six months post-implementation
Additional findings from this ILÚM Insight® implementation study will be shared later this year and were recently recognized at the internal UPMC Presbyterian Quality and Safety Fair with a First Place in Innovation Award.
“ILUM Insight offers an innovative software solution for stewardship teams to improve efficiency and increase the number of successful patient interventions,” said Ryan Shields, PharmD, M.S. and co-director of, Antibiotic Management Program at UPMC. “The real-time decision support enables teams to customize alerts and prioritize interventions that result in improved use of antibiotics.”
ID Connect’s software helps ID pharmacists and doctors select the most appropriate antimicrobial therapy while managing toxicity, costs and the potential for drug resistance and infection transmissions. With its powerful rules engine, Insight also combines a patient’s demographic factors, medication history, past hospitalizations, risk factors and other data to generate individualized treatment recommendations.
“As noted in a recent special report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention COVID-19: U.S. Impact on Antimicrobial Resistance the threat of antimicrobial-resistant infections has gotten worse—with resistant hospital-onset infections and deaths both increasing at least 15% during the first year of the pandemic,” said Dave Zynn, president and chief executive officer of ID Connect. “UPMC and our other 900+ hospital clients who are making investments in world-class ID services supported by software are helping ensure that recent setbacks in antimicrobial resistance are only temporary.”
ID Connect serves facilities and patients in 12 states. By combining advanced technology with deep infectious disease expertise, the company is helping hospitals and health systems reduce patient transfers by up to 40%, cut antibiotic use by 30% and reduced days of treatment per 1,000 patients by 40%.
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About Infectious Disease Connect
ID Connect is a world leader in telemedicine-enabled care of infectious diseases, antimicrobial stewardship, and infection control and prevention. Spun out of leading academic medical center UPMC, the company’s technology, precision medicine and data science are paired with world-class ID physicians to effectively manage infectious diseases across the U.S. At ID Connect, we strive to make people healthy, improve outcomes, and keep our communities free of infectious diseases. For more information, go to IDCtelemed.com
About UPMC
A $24 billion health care provider and insurer, Pittsburgh-based UPMC is inventing new models of patient-centered, cost-effective, accountable care. The largest nongovernmental employer in Pennsylvania, UPMC integrates more than 92,000 employees, 40 hospitals, 800 doctors’ offices and outpatient sites, and a more than 4-million-member Insurance Services Division, the largest medical insurer in western Pennsylvania. In the most recent fiscal year, UPMC contributed $1.5 billion in benefits to its communities, including more care to the region’s most vulnerable citizens than any other health care institution, and paid more than $900 million in federal, state and local taxes. Working in close collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences, UPMC shares its clinical, managerial, and technological skills worldwide through its innovation and commercialization arm, UPMC Enterprises, and through UPMC International. U.S. News consistently ranks UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside among the nation’s best hospitals in many specialties and ranks UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh on its Honor Roll of America’s Best Children’s Hospitals. For more information, go to UPMC.com.
