PINPOINT
To ensure the most effective treatment of symptomatic patients, it is critical to first pinpoint the infection. Fast and accurate testing is an important component for proper diagnosis and antibiotic prescribing. Recent CDC data suggests 70% of nursing home patients receive unnecessary antibiotic treatments. PINPOINT, AMS' targeted infection surveillance program, quickly identifies the correct infection on symptomatic patients to ensure proper treatment and appropriate prescribing.
PINPOINT is a decision tree process and, unlike STERISIS which focuses on identifying infection risks among the nursing facility population, is specific to residents that are actively showing signs of infection.
How it works:
AMS Infection Prevention Partners initiates F880-compliant process surveillance with clinical staff at the facility, identifying opportunities for infection prevention improvement based upon onsite observations and review of EHR documentation. AMS’ certified infection preventionists serve the staff as their onsite infection prevention mentor. Based upon process surveillance insights, custom and facility-specific training is initiated. During onsite visits, AMS clinicians will deliver and train on testing procedures and ensure laboratory supplies are always readily available for all infection testing requirements—respiratory, GI, wound, blood, and UTI.
For symptomatic residents with signs of respiratory infection, the most common infection category and the majority of a nursing homes’ infection risks, the following decision tree process is initiated:
One nasopharyngeal swab is administered on the symptomatic resident
> Initial viral panel tests specifically for COVID-19. If negative:
> Using the same patient's reagent, test for various viral pathogens, such as influenza strains. If negative:
> Using the same patient's reagent, test for multiple respiratory infections, bacterial pathogens, and antibiotic-resistant genes. If a pathogen is still not identified:
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The resident’s attending physician or Medical Director should be updated and further testing may be recommended by them
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Testing results are assessed by proprietary infectious disease analytics and recommendations are provided to help physicians and clinical staff make fast and accurate treatment decisions
AMS Infection Preventionists oversee the entire PINPOINT process and work with staff to make treatment recommendations. Additionally, infection information gathered from PINPOINT is used to make facility-wide infection prevention process improvement and staff education recommendations.
By using the patient’s same reagent from their swab in our partner labs, we can effectively and quickly identify infection while controlling costs. By adding AMS IP support to this targeted surveillance platform, your facility now has a complete program, which is easy to start, saves hours of staff time, reduces hospital readmissions as well as reduces the prescribing of unnecessary or ineffective antibiotics.
Additional benefits:
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Certified Infection Preventionist (IP) dedicated to facility
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IP mentorship and staff education
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Regularly scheduled onsite mentorship and education of facility infection prevention staff, practices, and policies
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Antibiogram and antibiotic stewardship program support
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Infectious disease analytics
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IP QAPI program guidance and mentorship
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Improved census
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Better patient care
"We have been very aggressive in our COVID testing of our symptomatic residents, but too many times we’re testing our residents for COVID and getting a negative result. We needed a better way to identify what is making them sick."
- Director of Nursing at a Missouri-based nursing facility