Dr. Dilek Ince, Clinical Assistant Professor of Infectious Diseases, and Dr. Dan Livorsi, Assistant Professor of Infectious Diseases, were recently awarded Improving Our Workplace Awards (IOWA) for their role on a multidisciplinary team to build what the team dubbed Microguide. This electronic resource allows healthcare providers at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics to access data and guidelines for a variety of infectious disease issues. Previously, antibiograms were issued on an annual basis to providers identifying how responsive infection-causing microorganisms were to various antibiotics. But the antibiogram was often out of date and only distributed in paper form, and thus not as readily available to providers making snap decisions.
The Microgruide development team, led by Dr. Bradley Ford of the Department of Pathology and Dr. Brian Hoff of the Department of Pharmacy, set out to produce a digital antibiogram, which could be easily and quickly updated and readily available to providers. Dr. Ince and Dr. Livorsi served as the primary infectious disease content experts for the various entries in Microguide. Other members from Pharmacy and Pathology—Drs. Diana Karkow, Wanita Howard, and Michael Brownlee—provided additional writing, research, and executive oversight.
Microguide is one of the first electronic resources of its kind available at an academic medical center in the United States. Since implementation, Microguide has been downloaded more than 900 times, with 34,000 hits on individual topics: the entry on Candiduria has been read more than 3,100 times, Spontaneous bacterial peritonitis more than 3,300, and Pancreatitis more than 2,400. This groundbreaking platform has tremendous potential for expansion in addition to providing a wealth of usage statistics, which can potentially provide helpful data to hospital leadership interested in quality improvement or antimicrobial stewardship. Peer-reviewed publication of their efforts is likely to be forthcoming.
A formal ceremony at which the Microguide team will be recognized will occur on the afternoon of May 16. Congratulations and our gratitude to Dr. Ince and Dr. Livorsi for their ongoing work on this innovative project!