title: COSARA: integrated service platform for infection surveillance and antibiotic management in the ICU.
abstract: The Intensive Care Unit is a data intensive environment where large volumes of patient monitoring and observational data are daily generated. Today, there is a lack of an integrated clinical platform for automated decision support and analysis. Despite the potential of electronic records for infection surveillance and antibiotic management, different parts of the clinical data are stored across databases in their own formats with specific parameters, making access to all data a complex and time-consuming challenge. Moreover, the motivation behind physicians' therapy decisions is currently not captured in existing information systems. The COSARA research project offers automated data integration and services for infection control and antibiotic management for Ghent University Hospital. The platform not only gathers and integrates all relevant data, it also presents the information visually at the point of care. In this paper, we describe the design and value of COSARA for clinical treatment and infectious diseases monitoring. On the one hand, this platform can facilitate daily bedside follow-up of infections, antibiotic therapies and clinical decisions for the individual patient, while on the other hand, the platform serves as management view for infection surveillance and care quality improvement within the complete ICU ward. It is shown that COSARA is valuable for registration, real-time presentation and management of infection-related and antibiotics data.
authors.affiliation: Department of Information Technology, Ghent University-IBBT, Belgium. kristof.steurbaut@intec.ugent.be
authors.forename: Kristof
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Steurbaut
authors.forename: Kirsten
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Colpaert
authors.forename: Bram
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Gadeyne
authors.forename: Pieter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Depuydt
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Vosters
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Danneels
authors.forename: Dominique
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Benoit
authors.forename: Johan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Decruyenaere
authors.forename: Filip
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: De Turck
mesh_terms: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D001530:Belgium; D003199:Computer Systems; D003428:Cross Infection / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000517:prevention & control; D020000:Decision Support Systems, Clinical; D006801:Humans; D007362:Intensive Care Units; D010607:Pharmacy Service, Hospital; D011159:Population Surveillance / Q000379:methods*; D018511:Systems Integration
chemical_list: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents