The Joint Commission Recognizes Genomic Surveillance for Hospital Infection Detection

UPMC Presbyterian Hospital in Pittsburgh has received The Joint Commission's John M. Eisenberg Local Innovation in Patient Safety and Quality Award for its pioneering implementation of bacterial whole genome sequencing (WGS) to detect infection transmission.

NGD Infection Prevention (NGD) congratulates the hospital on this recognition. Dr. Alex Sundermann, who co-led this work and is a member of NGD's Scientific Advisory Board, was instrumental in the project. The acknowledgment from The Joint Commission, a respected independent organization, adds credibility to the benefits of WGS technology for infection prevention.

The Presbyterian Hospital team reported that the use of WGS for detecting infection transmission resulted in reduced lengths of stay and significant cost savings that exceeded the cost of the WGS service.

NGD provides an automated WGS platform and bioinformatics pipeline designed to help hospitals detect and prevent infection transmission in real-time. The company's NGD200 system can process up to 48 bacterial samples with minimal hands-on time, and its bioinformatics analysis supports root cause identification and delivers actionable reports overnight.