|
To test the efficacy of antibiotics, microbiologists apply clinically
approved drugs to bacterial cultures. Drugs which are effective against
the microorganisms in the culture may then be considered therapeutically
useful in treating a patient with the same type of microbial infection.
However, bacteria are developing resistance to existing antibiotics,
making previously routine infections difficult or even impossible to
treat. This makes the task of developing new antibiotics difficult. It
also complicates the work of the health care provider, who must stay
abreast of these changes.
Microbiology culture data from the hospital's laboratory system are
monitored by SahmAlert. Using a rulebase consisting of criteria developed
by local epidemiologists, SahmAlert scans the culture data, identifying
which cultures contain organisms with patterns of unusual antibiotic
resistance.
Languages/Shells Used: CLIPS, Sybase ISQL scripts, Bourne shell scripts.
|
