Until recently, clinicians treating patient infections with antibiotics had limited access to data about the current degree of antibiotic resistance in their community. This lack of data makes it harder to use the appropriate antibiotic to treat a bacterial infection.
In addition, certain types of antibiotic-resistant bacteria may be more common in certain age groups and in certain types of clinical practices.
An answer to this lack of local data on antibiotic resistance would be the creation of more precise antibiograms showing the relevant resistance patterns of bacteria in specific clinical settings.
In partnership with Quest Diagnostics, COHR is pioneering approaches to provide such precision data summaries to clinicians in Washington state and to research factors affecting antibiogram variation between clinical settings.
Preliminary results from this effort were presented at the 2019 meeting of the Presidential Advisory Council on Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria (PACCARB) in Washington, DC.