Antibiotic Tracking App, Software Being Developed
By Katie Wike, contributing writer
Penn Medicine and Teqqa LLC are beginning development of software which would help doctors prescribe the most effective antibiotics
The University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Medicine has announced plans to collaborate with Teqqa LLC for the creation of an app which could “revolutionize the way antibiotics are tracked and prescribed in clinical settings.” According to a Penn Medicine press release, the two entities will work to develop software capable of guiding doctors to the best antibiotics for each patient and situation. The software will use real-time data to provide clinicians with information on antibiotic resistance in order to best treat patients.
Knowing the best antibiotics to use in a situation is critical for patient recovery. Real-time data would be a drastic change from the once-yearly updates physicians usually receive. According to MobiHealth News, the software will minimize risks of potentially dangerous pathogens which are increasingly resistant to the most common antibiotics.
“The appropriate use of antibiotics to treat infections depends on knowing what antibiotics kill which bacteria, “ said Keith Hamilton, MD, associate director of Healthcare Epidemiology, Infection Prevention and Control and director of Antimicrobial Stewardship at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. “Predicting and understanding the trends and patterns of resistance allows clinicians to choose appropriate medications to treat a patient’s infection, and provides the health system real, actionable data to make broad recommendations for use of these life-saving drugs.”
According to Penn Medicine, understanding the patterns of resistance, particularly within a given hospital, is essential to determining the best methods to track, prevent, and treat infections. A real-time update of this data would better guide doctors to treat their patients with antibiotics likely to work the first time, rather than meeting resistance and leading to poor outcomes for patients.
“This innovative software has the potential to improve patient outcomes and resistance patterns in hospitals across the country by allowing practitioners to understand the behavior of infections locally, regionally and most importantly, within their healthcare facilities,” said Patrick J. Brennan, MD, chief medical officer for the University of Pennsylvania Health System. “This is an important step in more effectively designing interventions to control and treat these infections.”