Johns Hopkins Emergency Department finds more appropriate antibiotic treatment and shorter STI visits Read more

WEBINAR REPLAY

Improving Antimicrobial Stewardship in Sexually Transmitted Infections

Overview

Traditional molecular PCR testing requires a large analyzer in a central laboratory, supplied with reagents or cartridges and operated by skilled lab professionals. For highly accurate and reliable diagnostic results, the healthcare professional has had only two choices:

  • Send the collected patient sample to a central/remote PCR lab for batch processing, with turnaround time from hours to days, or
  • Invest in point-of-care instrumentation that can bring the test closer, but with instrument bottlenecks, downtime and ongoing expenses for maintenance, calibration and cartridges.

This problem means patients may not get the treatment or the right treatment – which often leads to unnecessary use of antibiotics and antimicrobial resistance, expedited partner treatment cannot be initiated, and patients are often lost to follow-up. When patients leave without the right treatment, the infection continues to spread in them and possibly to their partner(s) and throughout the community.

This webinar will present the 2021 CDC STI guidelines, dive into the challenges with traditional STI testing and the impact on antibiotic stewardship and review what is needed to combat the growing number of antibiotic resistant STI.

Learning Objectives

In this video, participants will:

  • Review 2021 CDC STI Guidelines
  • Examine key challenges with STI testing today at clinical settings such as Urgent Care and Emergency Dept / Hospital including patients lost to follow up, implications of overtreatment / undertreatment of STI
  • Evaluate the implications of today’s STI testing to Antibiotic Stewardship.
  • Review STI point of care testing to combat the growing number of antibiotic resistant sexually transmitted infections.

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About the Presenter

Dr. Harnett has over 20 years of experience as a “boots on the ground” clinician, spending 10 years practicing emergency medicine before establishing himself as a nationally respected urgent care physician and key opinion leader. After five years as the Chief Medical Officer for American Family Care while they grew from 17 to 185 clinics, he founded No Resistance Consulting Group in 2016 which focuses on clinical trial site management and recruitment for a growing network of high volume, geographically diverse, urgent care, and multi-specialty trial sites. Dr. Harnett has been an active author and researcher – designing trials, writing trial protocols, and acting as a principal investigator for numerous clinical trials conducted in the urgent care setting.