TheraDoc commences beta testing of new computerized patient surveillance tool

Oct 19 2009

TheraDoc^®, the leading provider of clinical decision support technology in healthcare, today announced that it has started beta testing of a new computerized patient surveillance tool that will help hospitals monitor and manage screening programs for multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs), such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, which every year kills more people in the United States than AIDS.

The MDRO Compliance Manager, designed for use with TheraDoc’s Infection Control Assistant^® and its Expert System Platform^® core technology, was created to help hospitals boost compliance with screening protocols by quickly identifying patients who should be tested and those who need to be isolated in order to reduce the spread of MRSA and other drug-resistant organisms to other patients, staff, and visitors.

The beta testing coincides with October’s designation as World MRSA Awareness Month to increase knowledge about this serious patient safety threat. MRSA, a type of staph infection that is difficult to treat because it is resistant to many antibiotics, can cause serious problems including boils, septic wounds, heart-valve problems, toxic shock syndrome, and even death.

According to Stanley Pestotnik, M.S., R.Ph., president and chief executive officer of TheraDoc, the MDRO Compliance Manager reflects the company’s leadership role in providing real-time clinical information that positively impacts the quality and safety of patient care. “This clinical tool will help hospitals efficiently and cost-effectively manage their screening programs for MRSA and other drug-resistant organisms,” Pestotnik said.

“It’s very flexible, and once configured to match a hospital’s specific screening protocol, the tool seamlessly tracks compliance rates regarding patient screening and flags patients in need of screening tests,” he said. “Infection preventionists no longer have to spend hours manually reviewing vast amount of data. Reports can be generated at the click of a button, proving real-time, actionable information.”

In addition to helping to improve healthcare quality, the MDRO Compliance Manager has the potential to save hospitals money. Drug-resistant infections are enormously expensive—MRSA alone has been estimated to add up to $34,900 in direct medical costs per case, and up to $4.2 billion annually in total healthcare costs. Pestotnik said the tool also would help hospitals reduce costs by identifying patients who don’t need to be screened, such as patients known to be infected with MRSA, saving staff time required to test the patient, as well as the cost of the assay. “We are committed to helping hospitals cost-effectively monitor and manage important unfunded patient safety and quality mandates, such as screening for multidrug-resistant organisms,” he said.

The MDRO Compliance Manager is the latest product enhancement from TheraDoc, which provides clinical decision support technologies that help hospitals manage a wide range of patient safety issues. Its Expert System Platform monitors lab orders and results, microbiology results, pharmacy data, patient demographics, vital signs, ADT (admission, discharge, and transfer), and other data—providing the most comprehensive interfacing capabilities in the industry.

The system alerts clinicians about potential healthcare-associated infections, infectious disease outbreaks, adverse drug events, or changes in patient conditions so that appropriate and timely interventions can be made. TheraDoc’s gold-standard technology also supports and facilitates reporting of notifiable diseases, emerging infections, and other data to local, state, and national public health agencies such as the CDC. The MDRO Compliance Manager will be available to TheraDoc customers as part of its Infection Control Assistant in the first half of 2010.