DIATHERIX Laboratories - Infectious Disease Diagnostics, Drug Resistance Detection, MRSA and Hospital Acquired Infections

HOSPITAL INFECTIONS

Hospitals are being scrutinized by the federal government, patient advocates and regulatory agencies due to the matter of hospital acquired infectious disease. Many state governments have legislated that hospitals must report nosocomial infection rates annually to determine the extent of the infection rate within all hospitals in their respective states. The federal government has developed criteria for hospital acquired infections that link directly to the new guidelines for “Never Events”. These criteria can have the effect of reducing reimbursement to those hospitals where patients develop a hospital acquired infection. Other agencies, like the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) are also monitoring nosocomial infections during their inspections of hospitals. Further, hospitals have been forced to reinforce and enhance their infection control to establish monitoring programs for pre-admission screening as well as confirmation of infections developed during a patient’s hospital stay.

Today, hospitals must consider all options available in the identification, diagnosis and treatment of patients afflicted with infectious disease. Pre-admission testing can prove to be a very effective option for screening pre-surgical patients that may be colonized with MRSA. Hospitals, in conjunction with physicians, may establish standards of care and clinical pathways that identify patients with MRSA who can be treated prior to admission or can be admitted and isolated.

A major cost and reimbursement concern for hospitals involves complex pneumonia. This challenge is not well managed within hospitals because often physicians, the laboratory, and billing coders do not have standard protocols or full communication. For the hospital to more effectively and accurately confirm the physician’s diagnosis (ICD-9), laboratory testing must confirm the physician’s diagnosis according to CMS coding guidelines. Yet often, the microbiology laboratory does not have the ability to identify all the possible pathogens required to confirm diagnoses, forcing hospitals to accept reimbursement for non-complex instead of complex pneumonias.

DIATHERIX, using its Tem-PCR technology, can resolve this issue by identifying as many as 26 pathogens simultaneously, allowing for specific physician’s diagnosis. Our Molecular Differential Diagnostic (MDD) assay has the capacity to identify bacteria and virus in the same sample, providing results within hours of sample receipt. The physician receives precise and reliable information that determines if he/she is dealing with one pathogen or co-infection, which can alter the treatment plan for the patient. Further, Tem-PCR technology, based on molecular multiplex results, can identify pathogens faster and more accurately than microbiology, assisting the physician and pharmacist in de-escalating drug therapy as well as determining whether the patient requires antibiotics and/or antivirals. MDD can assist the physician in better detection of pathogens for a more accurate diagnosis, complement the laboratory with results confirming the physician’s diagnosis and result in linking diagnosis to therapy instead of treating empirically, thus providing better patient outcomes.