Intermountain Health has been approved for a funding award by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to help advance care for children by improving antibiotic prescribing practices for acute respiratory tract infection throughout its multi-state service area.
The $2.5 million project will help Intermountain clinicians expand research-based practices for prescribing antibiotics to treat acute respiratory tract infection in children, avoid adverse side effects, and shrink the growing problem of drug-resistant infections.
The project will include more than 1,350 Intermountain clinicians who prescribe medications at 249 Intermountain Health pediatric and family medicine clinics, emergency departments, urgent care centers, and telehealth services throughout its service area, which includes Utah, Colorado, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and parts of Arizona and New Mexico.
“For Intermountain Health, this project represents the largest, most complex, disciplined implementation of evidence-based practices in antibiotic stewardship, across all regions and in multiple settings,” said JP Valin, MD, chief clinical officer for Intermountain Health.
Intermountain Health, one of the nation’s leading health systems, is a nationally recognized leader in antibiotic stewardship for both adults and children.
“This project represents a significant springboard from which we can improve the care for more than 270,000 children with acute respiratory tract infections by promoting the adoption of evidence-based antibiotic prescribing practices throughout our system,” said Raj Srivastava, MD, chief clinical programs officer for Intermountain Health, who is leading the project.
“We look forward to the opportunity this initiative holds to continue to improve our clinical practices, and especially, enhance the health outcomes for hundreds of thousands of children who we provide care for,” Dr. Srivastava added.
PCORI is an independent, nonprofit organization authorized by Congress with a mission to fund patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research that provides patients, their caregivers, and clinicians with the evidence-based information they need to make better-informed health and health care decisions.
Intermountain Health’s multi-year project aims to equitably increase the use of narrow-spectrum antibiotics for the treatment of major respiratory tract infections, including acute otitis media, Group A Streptococcal pharyngitis, acute sinusitis, and community-acquired pneumonia. It also aims to reduce the duration of antibiotic prescriptions for selected respiratory infections.
To achieve these project goals, Intermountain clinicians will implement findings from a PCORI-funded patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research (CER) study that demonstrated that narrow-spectrum antibiotics were as effective as broad-spectrum antibiotics in treating acute respiratory tract infections among children, with fewer side effects.
As part of the project, caregivers will engage in clinician education and support regarding antibiotic use best practices, utilize reminders and feedback opportunities facilitated by technology and face-to-face communications, and draw on ongoing input and support from Family Advisory Committees and frontline clinicians.
“We are thrilled to have PCORI support for this important project, which will enable us to expand Intermountain Health’s antibiotic stewardship efforts into hundreds of pediatric care settings across our system to help ensure that children are receiving the very best care possible when they’re being treated for serious respiratory infections,” said Rob Allen, president and CEO of Intermountain Health. “Intermountain Health is uniquely positioned to advance antibiotic stewardship for children and is honored to partner with PCORI to advance this important work.”
Last year, Intermountain was among 42 health systems nationwide selected to participate in PCORI’s Health Systems Implementation Initiative (HSII). Intermountain was selected for funding for the project through a PCORI funding opportunity recruiting participating systems in the Health Systems Implementation Initiative to promote evidence-based practice, based on findings generated from PCORI-funded patient-centered research studies.
The Health Systems Implementation Initiative aims to reduce the estimated 17-year gap between evidence publication and clinical application. This initiative recognizes health systems’ practical experience and real-world insights are crucial for sustainable, large-scale implementation of practice-changing findings in clinical care.
“What makes this award particularly meaningful is it is based upon the Clinical Best Practice Integration model that has proven to significantly reduce that 17-year gap in multiple settings and populations across Intermountain,” said Katy Welkie, chief executive officer of Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital and vice president of Intermountain Children’s Health. “We’ll use that best-practice integration model to implement this project in all 249 of the non-hospital sites that care for children.”
Intermountain Health’s funding award has been approved pending completion of PCORI’s business and programmatic review and issuance of a formal award contract.
“This project exemplifies PCORI’s commitment to advancing the uptake of evidence into health care delivery settings to enable parents, caregivers and clinicians to make informed health care decisions and improve care delivery and health outcomes,” said PCORI executive director Nakela L. Cook, MD. “We look forward to following the project’s progress and collaborating with Intermountain Health to share its results.”
About Intermountain Health
Headquartered in Utah with locations in six states and additional operations across the western U.S., Intermountain Health is a nonprofit system of 34 hospitals, 400 clinics, medical groups with some 4,600 employed physicians and advanced care providers, a health plans division called Select Health with more than one million members, and other health services. Helping people live the healthiest lives possible, Intermountain is committed to improving community health and is widely recognized as a leader in transforming healthcare by using evidence-based best practices to consistently deliver high-quality outcomes at sustainable costs. For more information or updates, see https://intermountainhealthcare.org/news.
