maldi biotyper single CMYKA co-author of a new study documenting reductions in patient length of stay and overall costs from implementation of an antibiotic stewardship program using Bruker’s MALDI Biotyper will share her observations at a Bruker symposium to be held during the upcoming American Society for Microbiology (ASM) General Meeting in Denver.

The study, available in an online edition of the journal Archives of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, shows that the average length of stay was reduced by 2 days for participants in the antibiotic stewardship intervention group and overall costs were reduced by almost $20,000 per patient.

“We know that time is the enemy when dealing with serious infections,” says George Goedesky, executive director, marketing/ business development, Bruker Corp, Billerica, Mass. “This study demonstrates that reducing the time to diagnosis and optimal treatment through use of a rapid and accurate pathogen identification system, such as the MALDI Biotyper, when integrated into a comprehensive antibiotic stewardship program, improves patient care while significantly reducing length of stay and total costs.”

The authors from The Methodist Hospital in Houston set out to assess how patient care could be improved and cost savings achieved by a combination of rapid pathogen identification and a systematic approach to antimicrobial stewardship. Study patients with gram-negative blood infections were assigned to either routine care or to the intervention program, which included rapid pathogen identification and immediate antimicrobial susceptibility testing using the MALDI Biotyper, along with protocols for timely communication of results to inform therapeutic decisions.

The 113th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology will be held in Denver from May 18 to 21. Visit Bruker’s ASM booth #715 to learn more about the MALDI Biotyper.

The study authors report that in the preintervention period, final pathogen identification and susceptibility results took on average 47.1 hours, and in the intervention period, final results took 24.4 hours on average. The mean time to organism identification was 36.6 hours in the pre­intervention group versus 10.2 hours in the intervention arm. The mean length of stay in the preintervention group was 11.9 days with a mean hospital cost of $45,709. In the intervention group, length of stay averaged 9.3 days at an average cost of $26,162.

“At a time when pressures to reduce costs while improving patient care are escalating, we are delighted to show that combining a rapid and accurate pathogen detection system such as the MALDI Biotyper with common sense improvements in communication and treatment protocols produced such positive results for both patients and the hospital,” says Patricia Cernoch, manager of the microbiology laboratory at Methodist Hospital and a study co-author. “We look forward to helping to implement similar programs throughout our system.”

The Bruker MALDI Biotyper is currently available for research use in the United States. FDA clearance for clinical use is expected later this year.

[Source: Bruker Corp]