Multidrug-resistant Organisms in the Healthcare Setting

Vikas Gupta, PharmD, BCPS, director of Clinical Strategy at Becton Dickinson, discusses the value his research team’s findings will bring to healthcare practitioners.

Interview Transcript (slightly modified for readability)

“Yes, multidrug-resistant organisms are [critical] in the healthcare-associated infection, or HAI, time-period and hospital-onset time-period. We’re seeing quite a bit in the patients that come to the facility as well as in the nonacute-care setting. When [we] think about designing protocol guidelines to address treatment of [things such as] pneumonia, sepsis, other types of infections, skin and skin structure [infections], etc., this type of information [from our study] is very valuable to help them and inform them. [It can help physicians know if] they need to evaluate their guidelines in a different way. [It can also] help with their antimicrobial stewardship efforts more from a community perspective as well as in the acute-care setting.

I think one of the aspects of [this study] is [that] this type of data is very important for the healthcare system. It’s not just about physician prescribing or [using] diagnostic tests to identify these organisms. [We should bring together those from] nursing care [and] physician assistant care; you [have to] think about the whole complexity within our healthcare system and teams. This type of information going beyond just the physician practices can really be valuable to help them and these other healthcare providers, pharmacists for example, be better attuned to how much resistance is there in their own practice area to be able to do their part to combat this resistance as well.”