How Near Real-Time Clinical Surveillance Impacts Mortality

Houston Methodist faced a critical gap: rapid molecular diagnostics were delivering lab results faster than ever, but those results weren't translating into faster clinical interventions. Will Musick, Clinical Specialist of Infectious Diseases, puts it simply: "If a point of data is entered into the electronic medical record and nobody ever sees it, is it really there?"

The team built a blood culture surveillance program to solve this problem and automatically surface positive cultures, routing them to infectious disease-trained pharmacists who can intervene immediately. By eliminating the manual handoff chain from microbiology to pharmacy to providers, and making critical data clear to see in near real-time, the program ensures treatment decisions happen when they matter most.

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