Tag: AntimicrobialStewardship

VigiLanz Ranked No. 1 by KLAS Research for Antimicrobial Stewardship, Infection Control and Monitoring, and Pharmacy Surveillance

Posted on by Leo Bogee

MINNEAPOLIS – Jan. 31, 2019 – VigiLanz, a clinical surveillance company, today announced that it has earned 2019 Category Leader designations from KLAS Research for Antimicrobial Stewardship, Infection Control and Monitoring, and Pharmacy Surveillance.

This is the second year VigiLanz has earned the No. 1 distinction for multiple categories. The company previously achieved Category Leader status in 2018 for Infection Control and Monitoring and Pharmacy Surveillance. Antimicrobial Stewardship is a new KLAS category for 2019.

Three VigiLanz products were recognized in the “2019 Best in KLAS: Software and Services” report, released on January 31:

VigiLanz Dynamic Infection Control Monitor

Earning a score of 90.6, the Dynamic Infection Control Monitor is a seamless, real-time automated monitoring system that works with an organization’s standard EHR system. Its automatic exception-based alert system puts all patient records under continuous surveillance to alert decision makers in real time of potential infections, drug-bug mismatches, MDROs, isolation candidates, organism clusters, conditions of concern and reportable infections. The surveillance is based on a sophisticated set of customizable rule engines.

VigiLanz Dynamic PharmacoVigilance

Earning a score of 93.0, Dynamic PharmacoVigilance acts as a bridge between a hospital’s pharmacy and lab information systems, automating the comparison of patients’ drug usage with lab results, then presenting the potential for Adverse Drug Event reduction. Based on the system’s built-in rule sets or hospital-specific guidelines, it automatically generates warnings and alerts that help clinicians make appropriate drug therapy decisions.

VigiLanz Antimicrobial Stewardship

Earning a score of 94.6, the Antimicrobial Stewardship product monitors antimicrobial therapy to ensure appropriate use, including unnecessary antibiotic therapy, de-escalation opportunities, positive rapid diagnostic test results, and opportunities for antibiotic “time-outs.” The Antimicrobial Stewardship dashboard shows usage and resistance trends across the organization, is Meaningful Use 3 certified, and provides direct reporting to the Centers for Disease Control’s National Healthcare Safety Network.

“It’s an honor to be recognized by KLAS as a leader in multiple categories for the second time, validating the confidence and trust we know our customers have in our clinical surveillance products,” said VigiLanz Chairman and CEO David Goldsteen, MD. “KLAS’ global reputation for accurately and impartially measuring vendor performance is an unparalleled channel for customer feedback – something we find invaluable to our culture of continued innovation. We look forward to continuing to provide industry-leading solutions to hospitals across the country that improve the safety and quality of patient outcomes.”

The KLAS Category Leader designation is awarded to vendors that lead select market segments in which at least two products meet a minimum number of KLAS Konfidence reviews. Rankings are based on customer surveys of North American healthcare leaders, administrators, clinicians, and others who interact with the solutions.

About KLAS

KLAS is a research firm on a global mission to improve healthcare delivery by enabling providers and payers to be heard and counted. Working with thousands of healthcare professionals, KLAS gathers insights on software, services and medical equipment to deliver timely reports, trending data and statistical overviews. KLAS data is accurate, honest and impartial. The research directly represents the voice of healthcare professionals and acts as a catalyst for improving vendor performance. To learn more about KLAS and the insights we provide, visit www.KLASresearch.com.

About VigiLanz

Founded in 2001, VigiLanz (www.vigilanzcorp.com) is a privately held, rapidly growing provider of SaaS-based clinical surveillance solutions. The firm is focused on aggregating disparate EHR transactional workflow and documentation data across health systems to identify real-time clinical issues that avoid or minimize harm, optimize clinical outcomes and support preventive care. VigiLanz supports a large and growing community of hospital CMOs, CMIOs, CIOs, quality teams, infectious disease and control specialists, pharmacists, and other clinicians dedicated to real-time inpatient and outpatient care.

Antelope Valley and VigiLanz: Increasing Cost-Savings Enterprise Wide

Posted on by Leo Bogee

Customer Profile

Antelope Valley Hospital (AVH), a 420-bed district hospital located in Lancaster, California, has been serving northern Los Angeles County for more than 60 years. The area’s only full-service acute-care hospital, AVH provides a full array of medical and surgical services, mental health services, cancer care, and more. It is a Level II trauma center, accredited chest pain center, advanced primary stroke center and comprehensive community cancer center.

Challenge

Hospitals and health systems across the country consistently seek methods to improve patient care and reduce costs due to an increased focus on value-based care and fee transparency. For Antelope Valley, that meant looking at the hospital’s pharmacy department and implementing a system that would go beyond cost savings and efficiency within this one department.

“There came a point when we were advancing services, staffing and activity that we were somewhat limited in what we could do, like running reports,” explained Jill Bennett, PharmD, BCPS, Clinical Coordinator, Antelope Valley Hospital. “[Our current system] really only enabled us to look at a certain subsection of our population and only provided a snapshot of activities throughout the day. It was limiting.”

Bennett and her staff needed to make a change to accurately capture their entire patient population and intervene as needed. The team moved through several different systems. While it was more than what most hospitals had at the time, AVH needed more. It required a solution that had a dedicated rules engine, 24-hour surveillance and the ability to grow beyond pharmacy. After researching multiple platforms, the decision was clear: It had to be VigiLanz.

VigiLanz empowered the team to automatically screen and monitor every patient, while streamlining dosing, testing and reporting—and appropriately intervene and adjust treatment per a patient’s tailored therapy.

Solution

Antelope Valley Hospital initially implemented VigiLanz to condense product line software in the hospital and assist with adverse drug reaction reporting (ADR) and medication safety monitoring, but Bennett and her staff saw the data-sharing potential in the VigiLanz solution.

Thanks to data-sharing through the VigiLanz platform, Antelope Valley is able to utilize the platform as the primary source for ADR information and data storage, helping to eliminate more manual processes.

“The Electronic Health Record (EHR) does provide alerts for us at the point of order verification, which is where the pharmacist is typically working, but we don’t always have the time to address all of those things…we [also] don’t get as many rules, or the complexity of the rules that we do with VigiLanz at the point of order verification.”
— Jill Bennett, PharmD, BCPS, Clinical Coordinator, Antelope Valley Hospital

As the use of VigiLanz in the pharmacy department expanded, Bennett and her staff prepared to pull in other departments. The goal from the onset was to use VigiLanz to help solve issues related to antimicrobial stewardship, formulary compliance, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) quality indicators, National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) reporting, and direct budget initiatives. It was a tall order, but VigiLanz delivered on it all.

Today, Antelope Valley also uses VigiLanz to submit antimicrobial stewardship data via NHSN AUR (only the AU piece currently) and perform data abstraction and submission as part of the Public Hospital Redesign and Initiatives in Medi-Cal (PRIME) program in California. For the PRIME metrics, it assists Antelope Valley in the data abstraction for perioperative prophylactic antibiotics administered after surgical closure and captures a variation on the metrics of the National Quality Forum 2720: National Healthcare Safety Network Antimicrobial Use Measure, primarily focused on the MRSA drugs and antipseudomonal beta-lactams. This offers Antelope Valley the ability to track and assist in improving these metrics and provides an opportunity to recover funds.

The problem-solving doesn’t stop there. Bennett also works as a VigiLanz champion to engage other departments and show the solution’s ability to generate reports in a variety of settings.

“We wanted to pull dietary into the loop. Early on, I gave [the department] ways that they would be able to follow patients that were either on TPNs or warfarin. I’ve also reached out to respiratory services about monitoring isolation patients, respiratory orders or sputum cultures,” added Bennett. “Nursing has also used it, particularly related to patient education and anticoagulation and the tracking mechanism, so they have a report set up that they are using.”

Outcomes

With the help of VigiLanz, Antelope Valley staff can now create more accurate reports and utilize them more effectively, streamlining workflow and optimizing patient outcomes. VigiLanz’s ability to function at the enterprise level has allowed Antelope Valley to rededicate resources to other care improvement initiatives. It has also streamlined compliance with federal and state requirements, while generating financial rewards in the form of recovered funds from programs like PRIME that can be reinvested into the hospital.

Another core target for Antelope Valley was improvement related to antimicrobial stewardship. Its clinical pharmacists used VigiLanz to reduce illness by increasing the capture of grouped antimicrobial-related interventions, and their sum of cost savings went from $2.8 million in 2016 to more than $3.6 million in 2017. With intervention on the fired alerts and an increased focus on stewardship rounding, Antelope Valley has progressively eliminated inappropriate use and reduced its antimicrobial days of exposure per days present (risk for antimicrobial exposure per time unit of analysis stratified by location). A facility-wide analysis is also calculated and has improved.

Adverse event avoidance documentation capture in 2016 as a sum of cost savings totaled more than $576,232, and in 2017 it was $474,064, a rather significant contribution that is likely underestimated in terms of harm avoided and costs incurred. In the last two years, the Emergency Department alone documented more than $100,000 in savings.

Bennett acknowledges that there is still work to be done, but hopes exercises in cost-savings, interventions and reporting will show hospital leadership that the VigiLanz investment is—and will continue to be—an investment in themselves and the patients they serve.

“I’ve always said that pharmacy is the only department in the hospital that can actually save you money…the value derived from VigiLanz supports that.”
— Jill Bennett, PharmD, BCPS, Clinical Coordinator, Antelope Valley Hospital

Connexall and VigiLanz Combine Antimicrobial Stewardship with Intelligent Routing to Improve Patient Safety

Posted on by Leo Bogee

BOULDER, CO & TORONTO, ON – (February 28, 2018) – Connexall and VigiLanz, both named Category Leaders in the 2018 Best in KLAS awards, have teamed up to deliver time-sensitive information related to antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) to increase patient safety and improve outcomes at hospitals.

The VigiLanz AMS platform aggregates information from physician order entries, laboratory and pathology reports, and the EHR to provide continuous surveillance of patients. Connexall integrates with VigiLanz and the EHR to intelligently route data quickly and reliably to the assigned care team for the affected patient. This guides the care team to ensure safe and appropriate use of antibiotics.

“AMS has emerged as a central component of highly effective care quality and safety strategies, and success requires the ability to rapidly transform data into action,” said VigiLanz Chairman and CEO Dr. David Goldsteen, MD, MBA. “This partnership between VigiLanz and Connexall does just that, providing our customers with a robust AMS solution that leverages the power of two KLAS category leaders to drive improved patient outcomes.”

“Connexall is delighted to partner with VigiLanz to enhance antimicrobial stewardship programs for the benefit of patients.” stated David Tavares, GlobeStar/Connexall CEO. “Our intelligent routing capabilities ensure that the assigned care team is notified promptly and reliably to deliver the care the patients require.” continued Tavares.

To learn more about this progressive solution, please visit VigiLanz at Booth #2674 and Connexall at Booth #8105 at HIMSS18.

About Connexall

Connexall, ranked number one and named Category Leader in the 2015/2016, 2017, and 2018 Best in KLAS awards, is an enterprise-grade event management and control platform that delivers hospital-wide interoperability to people, systems, tasks, and devices. Its capabilities act as a backbone for clinical workflow, communicating the right information to the right person, at the right time, on the right device. Based on more than 20 years of R&D efforts, the Class II medical device software is completely vendor-neutral and device-independent. Connexall has offices in Canada, the United States, Brazil, Portugal and Hong Kong and works with well over a thousand of the world’s most renowned and progressive hospitals and health systems. For more information please visit www.connexall.com.

About VigiLanz

Founded in 2001, VigiLanz Corporation (www.vigilanzcorp.com) is a privately held, rapidly growing provider of SaaS health care intelligence and predictive analytics. The firm is focused on aggregating disparate EHR transactional workflow and documentation data across health systems to identify real-time clinical issues that avoid or minimize harm, optimize clinical outcomes and support preventive care along the entire health system continuum. VigiLanz supports a large and growing community of hospital CMOs, CMIOs, CIOs, quality teams, infectious disease and control specialists, pharmacists, and other clinicians dedicated to real-time inpatient and outpatient care. VigiLanz is shaping the emerging era of real-time health care by delivering enterprise intelligence technology and services that improve clinical outcomes, patient care and operational effectiveness.

Palomar Health Leverages VigiLanz to Enhance Rapid Diagnostics for Antibiotic Resistance

Posted on by Leo Bogee

Back Story

A healthcare system with breadth and depth

Palomar Health is a comprehensive healthcare system providing a full spectrum of healthcare services to communities in an 850-square-mile region, and a trauma center that covers more than 2,200 square miles of South Riverside and North San Diego County, the largest hospital district in California. In addition to three state-of-the-art hospitals—the 288-bed Palomar Medical Center Escondido, 319-bed Palomar Medical Center Downtown Escondido and 107-bed Palomar Medical Center Poway—the health system offers home health care, surgery, skilled nursing, ambulatory care, behavioral health services, wound care, and community health education programs.

At the forefront of technology, Palomar Health leverages the latest in medical technology without losing sight of the personal side of healthcare. This approach is why Palomar Health is nationally recognized for providing the highest quality of clinical care and access to comprehensive services.

Challenge

Fighting antibiotic resistance with rapid diagnostics

Antibiotic resistance is growing rapidly, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reporting that at least 2 million people are infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria each year, 23,000 die as a direct result, and many more die from associated complications. For hospitals, combating these “nightmare bacteria” requires, among other things, rapid diagnosis and appropriate treatment, and closely monitoring resistance patterns within the facility.

heartAT LEAST 2 MILLION PEOPLE ARE INFECTED WITH ANTIBIOTIC-RESISTANT BACTERIA EACH YEAR. 23,000 DIE AS A DIRECT RESULT.
“With blood infections, time is life because if you’re not getting the right antibiotic, that bacterium will kill you. It will cause you to go from a regular medicine floor to the ICU, or to progress towards death,” said Mike Kruse, Palomar Health’s manager of Clinical Pharmacy Services. “Keep in mind that bacteria have growing resistance, so we need to know what it is because it’s not going to stay the same over time, nor is it going to be the same between one patient and another.”

But it’s not as simple as accelerating the process. The blood cultures required to identify the correct bacterium, and therefore treatment, typically take 2–3 days. Until then, clinicians can only make their best educated guess.

heartIDENTIFICATION TYPICALLY TAKES 2–3 DAYS. UNTIL THEN, CLINICIANS CAN ONLY MAKE THEIR BEST EDUCATED GUESS.

Determined to reduce the severity of antibiotic resistance, Palomar Health began using the VERIGENE® System to enable rapid diagnostics with the VERIGENE® Gram-Positive and Gram-Negative Blood Culture Tests. Performed directly on positive blood culture bottles, rapid diagnostics rely on simultaneous screening to quickly detect infectious pathogens and drug resistance markers. This speeds detection of certain bacteria that are responsible for some of the most challenging and deadly infectious diseases, such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and gram negative rods such as E. coli. “It’s not quite Star Trek medicine, but it’s exciting enough that you feel as though you’re seeing Star Trek beginning to happen,” said Kruse. “It’s nucleic acid testing and that means at the genetic level, we are looking for pieces of genes that actually tell us what that bacterium is. We are even looking for pieces of genes that tell us the code for antibiotic resistance.”

Like any new technology, though, clinician adoption is imperative to the success of rapid diagnostics. It’s not enough to push the information into the patient’s electronic medical record, or even to push an alert to the clinician at the point of care. It must also be acted upon quickly and appropriately.

“We’d not used rapid diagnostics yet, so you’re not going to have every single provider knowing what to do with the information, or they’re not seeing it fast enough. So, then, what’s the purpose of rapid if it’s not really making rapid decisions?” said Kruse. “That’s where VigiLanz comes in.”

SOLUTION

Pair VERIGENE® with VigiLanz

Palomar Health had implemented the VigiLanz clinical surveillance platform approximately two years prior to adding rapid diagnostics. At the time, they sought a solution that would provide “a daily list of tasks for our pharmacists, but also let them tap into clinical decision support so that we could improve the care for our patients and find things that we would not otherwise have found,” said Kruse. “After we’d had it in place for about two years, that’s when we began to use it to innovate.”

Rapid diagnostics is a prime example of the innovation made possible by VigiLanz. There are approximately 30 different iterations of bacteria or resistance patterns identifiable by VERIGENE®. So Palomar Health’s pharmacy team worked closely with the VigiLanz team to build approximately 60 rules to match bacteria with antibiotics, as well as mismatch rules.

heartRAPID DIAGNOSTICS IS A PRIME EXAMPLE OF THE INNOVATION MADE POSSIBLE BY VIGILANZ.

“In some cases, it’s just an optimization of therapy, for example an antibiotic might be covered but it’s the most expensive one, or it is one that will cause more side effects,” said Kruse. “But the ones we really worry about are complete non-coverage, where you have bacterium growing and the current antibiotics are not going to cover it at all. That’s what’s exciting when you tie together VERIGENE® and VigiLanz.”

VigiLanz Integrates Infectious Disease Content from Sanford Guide

Posted on by Leo Bogee

MINNEAPOLIS – (November 29, 2017) – VigiLanz, a digital healthcare intelligence firm, announced today that users of its market-leading clinical intelligence platform now have direct access to the industry’s top digital infectious disease content. Integrating content from The Sanford Guide lets clinicians and pharmacists take the critical next step in the antimicrobial de-escalation process by leveraging peer-reviewed recommendations on the latest treatments—without having to exit the VigiLanz workflow.

Through its exclusive partnership with Sanford Guide, the most trusted name in the treatment of infectious disease, VigiLanz clients can access the full suite of digital infection disease content and associate it with specific rules. Users can then search comprehensive coverage of the latest clinician-designed treatment options for infectious diseases, syndromes, and pathogens from within the VigiLanz system, driving improved patient outcomes.

“The value of this partnership to our clients extends beyond their VigiLanz users to include any clinician or pharmacist in need of the actionable treatment recommendations, tailored for use in clinical scenarios, from anywhere across the enterprise,” said VigiLanz Chairman and CEO Dr. David Goldsteen, MD, MBA.

Noting that the company’s antimicrobial stewardship platform recently achieved the top overall satisfaction rating in the “Antimicrobial Stewardship 2017” performance report from KLAS Research, Goldsteen added, “The Sanford Guide’s exceptional content and clinical guidance are the perfect complement to our nationally-recognized platform, advancing care quality and patient safety through industry-leading guidance on the treatment of infectious diseases.”

The VigiLanz clinical intelligence platform leverages real-time monitoring of thousands of patient care data elements to help improve medication safety, antimicrobial stewardship, infection prevention, quality and care management, and patient safety. Its state-of-the-art rules engine analyzes that data and pushes alerts to clinicians at the point of care when interventions and other actions are necessary, driving significant improvements in safety, efficiency, performance, and reimbursement.

Trusted by clinicians in more than 100 countries, The Sanford Guide is optimized to minimize time-to-answer while providing comprehensive guidance at the point of care. With continually updated information based on the latest available evidence, focused anti-infective drug information, interactive dosing tables, and extensive links to references and related resources, The Sanford Guide provides actionable guidance that is accessible, concise, and reliable.

“By integrating The Sanford Guide’s trusted clinical treatment recommendations with its top-rated clinical surveillance tools, VigiLanz is helping hospital and health systems take their approach to infectious disease and antimicrobial stewardship to the next level,” said Sanford Guide CEO and Managing Editor Jeb Sanford.

For more information on the integrated VigiLanz-Sanford Guide solution, visit VigiLanz in booth #1641 during the ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting And Exhibition, taking place Dec. 3-7 in Orlando, Fla.

About VigiLanz

Founded in 2001, VigiLanz Corporation (www.vigilanzcorp.com) is a privately held, rapidly growing provider of SaaS health care intelligence and predictive analytics. The firm is focused on aggregating disparate EHR transactional workflow and documentation data across health systems to identify real-time clinical issues that avoid or minimize harm, optimize clinical outcomes and support preventive care along the entire health system continuum. VigiLanz supports a large and growing community of hospital CMOs, CMIOs, CIOs, quality teams, infectious disease and control specialists, pharmacists, and other clinicians dedicated to real-time inpatient and outpatient care. VigiLanz is shaping the emerging era of real-time health care by delivering enterprise intelligence technology and services that improve clinical outcomes, patient care and operational effectiveness.

VigiLanz Becomes First Clinical Intelligence Platform to Integrate Sanford Guide Infectious Disease Content

Posted on by Leo Bogee

MINNEAPOLIS, MN and SPERRYVILLE, VA. – (September 26, 2017) – VigiLanz, a digital healthcare intelligence firm, and Antimicrobial Therapy Inc., publisher and developer of The Sanford Guide, announced today an exclusive partnership that brings together the market-leading clinical intelligence platform and the industry’s top digital infectious disease content. Doing so provides VigiLanz users with the critical next step in the clinical surveillance process—access to peer-reviewed recommendations on the latest treatments for improved patient outcomes.

The agreement with Sanford Guide, the most trusted name in the treatment of infectious disease, is just the latest in a string of achievements for VigiLanz. Most recently, its antimicrobial stewardship platform achieved the top overall satisfaction rating in the “Antimicrobial Stewardship 2017” performance report from KLAS Research.

The VigiLanz clinical intelligence platform leverages real-time monitoring of thousands of patient care data elements to help improve medication safety, antimicrobial stewardship, infection prevention, quality and care management, and patient safety. Its state-of-the-art rules engine analyzes that data and pushes alerts to clinicians at the point of care when interventions and other actions are necessary, driving significant improvements in safety, efficiency, performance, and reimbursement.

“Integrating Sanford Guide content into this process answers the question, ‘What’s next in the antimicrobial de-escalation process?’ by giving clinicians and pharmacists convenient access to the latest clinician-designed treatment recommendations without having to exit the VigiLanz system,” said VigiLanz Chairman and CEO Dr. David Goldsteen, MD, MBA. “We are proud to provide our clients with access to The Sanford Guide’s exceptional content and clinical guidance, more so because we are the first and only clinical intelligence platform able to do so.”

Trusted by clinicians in more than 100 countries, The Sanford Guide is optimized to minimize time-to-answer while providing comprehensive guidance at the point of care. Edited by distinguished infectious disease experts from leading academic and clinical centers, Sanford Guide content provides comprehensive coverage of treatment options for infectious diseases, syndromes, and pathogens. Under the partnership agreement, VigiLanz clients will have access to the full suite of Sanford Guide digital infectious disease content.

With continually updated information based on the latest available evidence, focused anti-infective drug information, interactive dosing tables, and extensive links to references and related resources, The Sanford Guide provides actionable guidance that is accessible, concise, and reliable.

“This partnership with VigiLanz is the most unique collaboration our company has undertaken since its founding nearly 50 years ago. As we moved forward with ever more sophisticated digital offerings, it was imperative that the company we aligned with share our values and commitment to improving the quality of treatment through focused clinical guidance at the point of care. VigiLanz was that company,” said Sanford Guide CEO and Managing Editor Jeb Sanford. “Together we have created a product that fully integrates trusted clinical treatment recommendations with top-rated clinical surveillance tools. Our goal is to improve patient outcomes while minimizing technology burdens on providers.”

For more information on the VigiLanz-Sanford Guide partnership, visit VigiLanz in booth #226 or Sanford Guide in booth #710 during IDWeek 2017, taking place October 4-8 in San Diego, CA.

About Sanford Guide

Since 1969, Sanford Guide has been a leader in point-of-care recommendations for the treatment of infectious diseases. Widely used by pharmacists, physicians, physician assistants, and nurses, Sanford Guide helps to improve patient care by providing carefully curated recommendations based on the latest evidence. With over 1 million users worldwide, Sanford Guide takes pride in responsiveness to customers, the development of innovative solutions, and providing content that is unparalleled in quality and clinical applicability.

About VigiLanz

Founded in 2001, VigiLanz Corporation (www.vigilanzcorp.com) is a privately held, rapidly growing provider of SaaS health care intelligence and predictive analytics. The firm is focused on aggregating disparate EHR transactional workflow and documentation data across health systems to identify real-time clinical issues that avoid or minimize harm, optimize clinical outcomes and support preventive care along the entire health system continuum. VigiLanz supports a large and growing community of hospital CMOs, CMIOs, CIOs, quality teams, infectious disease and control specialists, pharmacists, and other clinicians dedicated to real-time inpatient and outpatient care. VigiLanz is shaping the emerging era of real-time health care by delivering enterprise intelligence technology and services that improve clinical outcomes, patient care and operational effectiveness.

Cincinnati Children’s: Ensuring Safe Antibiotic Utilization Among Pediatric Kidney Patients

Posted on by Leo Bogee

Customer Profile

Ranked by U.S. News & World Report as one of the nation’s best children’s hospitals, the 629-bed Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center is a leading medical research institution and teaching hospital caring for children from across the globe. Established in 1883, the healthcare system’s 15,260 employees engage in 1.25 million patient encounters each year, including approximately 34,000 admissions and 103,000 emergency department visits.

Cincinnati Children’s comprises the Department of Pediatrics of the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, offering comprehensive clinical services ranging from treatments for rare and complex conditions to well-child care. It is the third-highest recipient of research grants from the National Institutes of Health among pediatric institutions and is among just 7% of hospitals in the U.S. to have earned Magnet-designation (2013-2017) by the American Nurses Credentialing Center.

heartCINCINNATI CHILDREN’S WAS DETERMINED TO DECREASE PROLONGED USE OF VANCOMYCIN

Challenge

With a growing body of evidence associating acute kidney injury (AKI) with an increased risk for development of chronic kidney disease, end-stage renal disease and mortality, Cincinnati Children’s was determined to reduce rates of AKI among its pediatric inpatient population. Baseline data indicated that, on average, six inpatients each week developed AKI during or within a week of discontinuing a vancomycin course. Additional evidence also suggested that extended courses of vancomycin—which when used beyond four days for empiric courses creates potentially unnecessary exposure to a nephrotoxic medication—may have been unintended.

Thus, vancomycin utilization was a natural target as the healthcare system embarked upon its mission to reduce the risk of AKI in pediatric patients. Specifically, Cincinnati Children’s sought to:

  • Decrease episodes of acute kidney injury associated with vancomycin use.
  • Decrease vancomycin exposure.
  • Decrease prolonged courses of vancomycin.
  • Increase oversight and approval for prolonged vancomycin exposure.

Success would require a close partnership between pharmacists and physicians that would enable implementation of an innovative, multistep quality improvement program focused on reducing the risk of vancomycin-induced kidney injury in pediatric patients. It also necessitated implementation of surveillance, clinical decision support and reporting technology capable of triggering interventions and educating clinicians on best practices.

Solution

Integrated within an existing antimicrobial stewardship program (ASP) and AKI reduction efforts, a core team of pharmacists, physicians, the chief medical resident and a quality improvement expert identified key drivers and implemented interventions including standardized orders, improved medical record documentation and integration of new processes into normal workflow. This enabled a stepwise approach using “plan-do-study-act” cycles.

Cincinnati Children’s also deployed the VigiLanz ASP solution to automate key processes, including screening and monitoring patients. The cloud-based platform leverages data collected from Cincinnati Children’s electronic medical record, physician order entry, laboratory and pathology systems to monitor patients in real-time for drug interactions and ineffective or inappropriate antibiotics. When potential issues are identified, alerts are triggered to enable clinical pharmacists and other members of the care team to take appropriate action.

Outcomes

Leveraging VigiLanz helped Cincinnati Children’s to create a sustainable and scalable framework that guides appropriate and safe use of antimicrobials while also promoting the safe and effective use of other medications. By enabling the provision of enterprise-wide guidance on the use of vancomycin in a matter of minutes each day, the technology helped drive significant improvements. These included:

  • Decreasing AKI associated with vancomycin exposure to an average of 4 per week from a baseline average of 6 per week, with sustained efforts likely to prevent an estimated 100 cases of vancomycin-associated acute kidney injury per year.
  • Decreasing vancomycin exposure (days of therapy/1000 patient days) by 43%, putting Cincinnati Children’s below the 25th percentile from a baseline near the 50th percentile.
  • Decreasing instances of prolonged courses of vancomycin by 44% hospital-wide.
  • Increasing ASP/ID approval in courses of vancomycin greater than four days to an average of 95% from a baseline average of 53%.

Cincinnati Children’s efforts to reduce AKI were recognized by the Association of Health-System Pharmacists, which gave the health system its 2016 Award for Excellence in Medication Safety.

“…We believe we can decrease the potential downside by choosing antibiotics that are likely to be just as effective but have less risk of increasing antibiotic resistance,” said David Haslam, M.D., an infectious disease specialist who joined Cincinnati Children’s specifically to launch its ASP initiative. “…Some hospitals just say ‘you can’t use that drug.’ Our approach will be ‘you might want to consider [another drug].’ We hope physicians will view this as bringing a lot of potential benefit.”– Silva, Mary. “Finding the Balance.” Research Horizons. Winter 2014.

VigiLanz Achieves Top Rating for Overall Satisfaction in KLAS AMS Performance Report

Posted on by Leo Bogee

MINNEAPOLIS – (Aug. 31, 2017) – VigiLanz, a digital healthcare intelligence firm, announced today that its antimicrobial stewardship platform achieved the top overall satisfaction rating in the “Antimicrobial Stewardship 2017” performance report from KLAS Research. In identifying VigiLanz as the market leader, KLAS cited the platform’s highly robust, fairly user-friendly platform, the strength of the firm’s partnerships with customers, and its dedication to providing the guidance necessary to ensure customizations meet end users’ needs.

“The key is real-time alerting, and Antimicrobial Stewardship has it. The system is able to alert clinicians to certain conditions, even when the physicians are at home having dinner. It is nice to get alerts when we aren’t in front of the EMR,” according to one VigiLanz customer.

To compile its report, KLAS conducted in-depth interviews with current customers of each participating vendor to better understand which antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) tools are helping to drive meaningful interventions and track internal metrics. Interviews also focused on how well users can customize rule sets and use antibiograms to meet organizations’ unique goals, as well as which vendors help customers optimize tools and prepare for future reporting requirements.

Writes KLAS, “Providers new to AMS programs highly value guidance and expertise from their vendors, and VigiLanz’s proactive support has driven their top overall satisfaction rating. Provider interest in VigiLanz has grown over the last few years, and customers receive strong guidance and expertise that ensures their success.”

VigiLanz, which had the highest number of customers interviewed by KLAS, excelled in a large number of the evaluation categories. Under performance indicators, 100% of users said they would buy the platform again and that VigiLanz kept all promises. The platform also exceeded the market average for functionality of its custom rules set and customizable antibiogram. It was also singled out for being farthest along the compliance reporting spectrum, delivering on the three basic fronts of making AMS data accessible within the system for reporting, communicating with customers about forthcoming regulations and actions underway to help them prepare, and automating reporting. Specifically, customers have access to reports that can be submitted directly to the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN).

Also noteworthy is that a significant majority of respondents were satisfied or extremely satisfied with the VigiLanz platform’s ability to track key internal metrics and with its optimization services. This is an important distinction because, as KLAS notes, “internal tracking is crucial to a good AMS program because it enables users to see trending and benchmarking data. It can be tricky to do well because data from many different sources must be aggregated, analyzed and made easy to digest. VigiLanz customers have strong customization abilities and highly value VigiLanz’s robust interfaces, which successfully pull in data from many areas.”

“As more healthcare organizations seek to automate the crucial AMS process, it is important to partner with a vendor that can provide a solution that is flexible, robust and backed by outstanding customer support,” said VigiLanz Chairman and CEO Dr. David Goldsteen, MD, MBA. “It is truly gratifying to know that our customers feel that VigiLanz is that solution.”

About KLAS

KLAS is a research and insights firm on a global mission to improve healthcare delivery by amplifying the provider’s voice. Working with thousands of healthcare professionals and clinicians, KLAS gathers data and insights on software, services and medical equipment to deliver timely reports, trends and statistical overviews. The research directly represents the provider voice and acts as a catalyst for improving vendor performance. Follow KLAS on Twitter.

VigiLanz Platform Earns Meaningful Use Stage 3 Certification for Antimicrobial Use and Resistance Reporting

Posted on by Leo Bogee

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. – (March 6, 2017) – VigiLanz, a digital healthcare intelligence firm, announced today that its antimicrobial stewardship platform has earned Meaningful Use Stage 3 (MU3) certification validating its ability to collect and properly report data around antimicrobial use and resistance. The company is one of the first to achieve Stage 3 certification for use by facilities enrolled in the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) that are required to begin reporting Antimicrobial Use and Antimicrobial Resistance (AUR) data in 2018.

A new option for public health registry reporting under MU3, collection of AUR data is already underway in preparation for the 2018 reporting period. Participating facilities must submit monthly reports on anti-infective medications—antibiotics, anti-bacterials, antifungals, antivirals, antiprotozoals, etc.—that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will use to gain a better understanding of how their use impacts antimicrobial resistance in hospitals and healthcare facilities. The AUR objective calls for reporting a full calendar year’s data on R1 Normative Antimicrobial Use Summary, Antimicrobial Resistance Event, and Antimicrobial Resistance Summary data to be reported using Clinical Documentation Architecture (CDA) formatting.

“Inappropriate antibiotic utilization and multidrug resistant organisms are among the deadliest threats confronting the healthcare system today. That is why it was so important to us to achieve MU certification for AUR data collection and reporting,” said VigiLanz Chairman and CEO Dr. David Goldsteen, MD, MBA, noting that drug resistant organisms alone infect 2 million people and claim 23,000 lives in the U.S. every year, while adding $34 billion to annual healthcare costs. “It lets us play an active role in addressing this dangerous and costly phenomenon.”

Submission of AUR data into the NHSN platform allows clinicians to benchmark their antibiotic usage and organism resistance data nationally to target areas of improvement.

VigiLanz spent six months working on updates to its platform in preparation for its certification application. As such, it can properly collect and report data in the CDA format retroactively to January 1, 2017. Any customer with Dynamic Antimicrobial Stewardship or Dynamic Pharmacy Surveillance modules that is currently sending electronic medication reconciliation data can take advantage of certification without the need for additional upgrades, and without incurring any additional costs. VigiLanz also has the means to assist clients not yet collecting this data, to do so retroactively.

Part of VigiLanz’ clinical intelligence platform, the antimicrobial stewardship solution leverages data collected from a hospital’s electronic medical record, physician order entry, laboratory and pathology systems to monitor patients in real-time for drug interactions and ineffective or inappropriate antibiotics. When potential issues are identified, alerts are triggered to enable clinical pharmacists and other members of the care team to take appropriate action.

Certification Information:

“This Health IT Module is 2015 Edition compliant and has been certified by an ONC-ACB in accordance with the applicable certification criteria adopted by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. This certification does not represent an endorsement by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.”

Product(s) Certified:

Dynamic Antimicrobial Stewardship
Dynamic Pharmacy Surveillance
VigiLanz Corporation http://vigilanzcorp.com
5775 Wayzata Boulevard, Suite 970 Minneapolis MN 55416
Modules Tested: 170.315 (d)(1-3, 7); (f)(6); (g)(4,5)
Clinical Quality Measures tested: None
Additional software used: None
Holds Certificate No: 15.04.04.XXXX.Dyna.17.0.0.170217
Date Certified: 02/17/2017
Effective Date: 2015 Edition
ONC 21st Century CURES ACT: Real World Test Plan 2022 , Real World Test Plan 2023

 

Disclosure Statement:

This certified product-version requires a one-time implementation fee and an annual licensing fee. This certified product-version is certified to data export criteria 170.315(f)(6.) and can generate Antimicrobial Use and Resistance CDA reports in real-time however this monthly data is not available until the 4th of each month to allow time for facility information to finalize.

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