Wolters Kluwer, Health announces that its Sentri7 clinical surveillance solution has been enhanced with artificial intelligence (AI) to identify patients at risk for Clostridioides difficile (C. diff) infection.
The solution uses a highly advanced and validated algorithm to produce C. diff infection (CDI) risk scores for individual patients, empowering clinicians to proactively alter patient care to reduce risks for infection and improve outcomes.
Patients with C. diff infection are associated with longer lengths of stay, higher readmission rates, and higher mortality, making it a precarious and costly disease for hospitals. With Sentri7’s AI+ technology package, hospitals can now identify at-risk patients days earlier and prevent infection by addressing modifiable risk factors, such as high-risk antimicrobials and acid suppressants.
Wolters Kluwer piloted the technology, and early adopters such as Carilion Clinic quickly saw its value. “As a multi-hospital system, we face a unique set of challenges in managing patient safety, regulatory compliance and costs, and reducing C. diff infections remains a focus of ours,” said Caitlin Meanor, Infectious Diseases Pharmacist at Carilion. “With the CDI Risk Score embedded in Sentri7, we can harness all of the clinical data associated with patient care and allow our clinical pharmacists to triage management based on risk factors and acuity.”
Sentri7 helps break down data silos that may exist across hospital systems, close patient information gaps and overcome roadblocks that hinder real-time analysis of a patient condition. Sentri7’s predictive CDI algorithm tracks patients’ risk levels and automatically updates the score if a patient’s condition changes. This allows clinicians and pharmacists to address stage-specific risk factors and proactively thwart C. diff infection using established, evidence-based prevention practices.
“A C. diff infection can often derail a patient’s prognosis and add a cascade of challenges for care teams. Wolters Kluwer has been aggressively validating AI surveillance capabilities and we are proud to deliver advanced tools providers need to control CDI,” said Karen Kobelski, Vice President and General Manager, Clinical Surveillance, Compliance & Data Solutions at Wolters Kluwer, Health. “This technology is key to empowering hospital pharmacy teams to serve as key members of the multidisciplinary teams working to curb CDI and improve antimicrobial stewardship.”
To cultivate this validated AI model for assessing patient risk of C. diff infection more precisely, Wolters Kluwer assembled a team of physicians, epidemiologists, antimicrobial stewardship experts and data scientists to analyze millions of data inputs. The combination of data science expertise and expansive clinical knowledge at Wolters Kluwer contributed to its recent recognition by Frost & Sullivan as a Frost Radar™ global leader in artificial intelligence for healthcare IT.