Antibiotic Decision Support System for Management of Combat Casualties with Severe Infections

Many military casualties survive the first few days of burn and trauma resuscitation and surgeries only to fall victim to an infection and sepsis. Intensive care for these casualties is complex, requires treatment of systemic and often multiple organ systems at a time and is highly error prone. Evidence-based best practices are published, but yet not implemented in step by step detail at the bedside due to complexity. Severe sepsis and septic shock have high mortality rates and are costly to treat. Recent data has shown that computerized clinical decision support programs can greatly increase compliance with evidence based best practices. Appropriate and timely antibiotic therapy is a primary determinant of clinical outcomes for septic patients. Arcos is developing an Antibiotic Decision Support System that will provide initial antibiotics recommendation based on severity of infection, length of stay, anti-biograms and allergies, subsequent antibiotics recommendations based on sensitivity and culture results, algorithms to optimize dosages based on minimum inhibitory concentration results, and graphics to chart a patients? infections and drugs throughout hospital stay. We anticipate that the use of this system will provide better and timelier antibiotic decisions and adjustments, resulting in improved patient outcomes with reduced costs of care.