VigiLanz, a digital healthcare intelligence firm, announced today that its antimicrobial stewardship platform has earned Meaningful Use Stage 3 (MU3) certification validating its ability to collect and properly report data around antimicrobial use and resistance. The company is one of the first to achieve Stage 3 certification for use by facilities enrolled in the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) that are required to begin reporting Antimicrobial Use and Antimicrobial Resistance (AUR) data in 2018. 

A new option for public health registry reporting under MU3, collection of AUR data is already underway in preparation for the 2018 reporting period. Participating facilities must submit monthly reports on anti-infective medications -- antibiotics, anti-bacterials, antifungals, antivirals, antiprotozoals, etc. -- that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will use to gain a better understanding of how their use impacts antimicrobial resistance in hospitals and healthcare facilities. The AUR objective calls for reporting a full calendar year's data on R1 Normative Antimicrobial Use Summary, Antimicrobial Resistance Event, and Antimicrobial Resistance Summary data to be reported using Clinical Documentation Architecture (CDA) formatting.

"Inappropriate antibiotic utilization and multidrug resistant organisms are among the deadliest threats confronting the healthcare system today. That is why it was so important to us to achieve MU certification for AUR data collection and reporting," said VigiLanz Chairman and CEO Dr. David Goldsteen, MD, MBA, noting that drug resistant organisms alone infect 2 million people and claim 23,000 lives in the U.S. every year, while adding $34 billion to annual healthcare costs. "It lets us play an active role in addressing this dangerous and costly phenomenon." 

Submission of AUR data into the NHSN platform allows clinicians to benchmark their antibiotic usage and organism resistance data nationally to target areas of improvement. 

VigiLanz spent six months working on updates to its platform in preparation for its certification application. As such, it can properly collect and report data in the CDA format retroactively to January 1, 2017. Any customer with Dynamic Antimicrobial Stewardship or Dynamic Pharmacy Surveillance modules that is currently sending electronic medication reconciliation data can take advantage of certification without the need for additional upgrades, and without incurring any additional costs. VigiLanz also has the means to assist clients not yet collecting this data to do so retroactively.

Part of VigiLanz' clinical intelligence platform, the antimicrobial stewardship solution leverages data collected from a hospital's electronic medical record, physician order entry, laboratory and pathology systems to monitor patients in real-time for drug interactions and ineffective or inappropriate antibiotics. When potential issues are identified, alerts are triggered to enable clinical pharmacists and other members of the care team to take appropriate action.

For more information, visit www.vigilanzcorp.com.