WellSpan Health will receive nearly $1 million from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to help improve antibiotic prescribing for children with acute respiratory tract infections in all urgent care and pediatric practices, as well as in some primary care settings. was approved for funding. It is practiced throughout central Pennsylvania. Ensuring appropriate use of antibiotics commonly prescribed to children can help prevent the growing problem of drug-resistant infections and avoid harmful side effects. This is an effort in conjunction with WelSpan’s ongoing Child Health Spotlight initiative.
“This funding will allow us to rapidly implement evidence-based research to improve the lives of our youngest patients here in central Pennsylvania,” said WellSpan Health Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer. said Dr. Michael Seim, Director of Quality. “This is part of WellSpan’s commitment to high-quality care and is a perfect example of why we partnered with PCORI.”
“This PCORI funding award will support WellSpan Health in advancing antibiotic stewardship for children with acute respiratory tract infections,” said PCORI Executive Director Nakela L. Cook, MD, MPH. “This project aims to advance the introduction of evidence into health care delivery settings to help parents, carers and clinicians make informed health care decisions and improve health care delivery and health outcomes. It embodies PCORI’s commitment and we look forward to tracking the progress of the project and collaborating with Welspun to share its results.”
The $942,072 funding will be implemented at the end of the calendar year and will have a duration of 42 months. This is expected to benefit approximately 45,000 pediatric WellSpan patients, ages 6 months to 12 years, across 34 care facilities within the health system.
The aim is to improve antibiotic prescribing by educating and training clinicians and team members. The grant will also be used to support IT integration, including clinical decision support tools to enable healthcare providers to prescribe within the electronic health record. It also includes MyWellSpan portal messages to patients and patient engagement and follow-up by care team members via telephone to assess patient needs.
Results from a PCORI-funded patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research (CER) study show that narrow-spectrum antibiotics are as effective as broad-spectrum antibiotics in treating acute respiratory tract infections in children and have fewer side effects. It shows that there are few.
WellSpan is a participant in PCORI’s Health Systems Implementation Initiative (HSII), an HSII participant that advances evidence-based practices based on findings from PCORI-funded patient-centered CER. was selected among 41 other health systems through the PCORI funding opportunity to recruit. HSII aims to shorten the estimated 17-year gap between publication of evidence and clinical application. This initiative recognizes that real-world experiences and real-world insights from health systems are critical to the sustainable, large-scale implementation of practice-changing findings in clinical care.
This funding was approved pending completion of PCORI’s business and program review and issuance of a formal benefits agreement.
Last year, Welspun received approximately $500,000 in initial PCORI funding to build capacity, leading to the announcement of this award.
PCORI is an independent nonprofit organization chartered by Congress with a mission to fund patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research and provide better information to patients, their caregivers, and clinicians. Provides the evidence-based information you need to make informed health and healthcare decisions.
