PeaceHealth fires up diagnosis of sepsis

PeaceHealth physicians who suspect patients may have sepsis will soon be able to identify the bacteria causing the infection in a fraction of the time, thanks to a new diagnostic device.

The new BioFire machine can identify the bacteria within an hour, as opposed to current methods that take a day or more. The quicker identification means physicians can prescribe the appropriate antibiotics to combat the infection sooner and prevent the patient’s condition from worsening, said Darrell Mooers, the laboratory manager at PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center.

“We understand the faster we get the right antibiotic going, the better,” Mooers said.

Sepsis is a complication of an infection and occurs when chemicals released into the bloodstream to fight the infection trigger inflammatory responses throughout the body. The inflammation can damage multiple organ systems, causing them to fail, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Every year, more than 1 million Americans develop sepsis, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Currently, when PeaceHealth physicians suspect a patient may be experiencing sepsis, they send blood samples to the lab. While waiting for the results, physicians prescribe an antibiotic to kill all bacteria, hoping to wipe out the bug causing the illness. The problem, Mooers said, is the antibiotic will also kill the good bacteria living in the body. In addition, the antibiotic may not be effective if the bacteria has developed a resistance to that particular drug, he said.

But, with identification currently taking about 24 hours, physicians want to start treatment as soon as possible, Mooers said. To identify the specific bacteria causing the illness, the lab has to allow the bacteria to grow enough to be identified under microscope. Typically, that takes a day or more, Mooers said.

The BioFire device, however, cuts that identification time down to one hour.

“This cuts out that whole process,” Mooers said.

The device doesn’t require the wait-time for the bacteria to grow. Instead, the blood sample can immediately be put on a panel that compares the sample to 22 organisms, including listeria, meningitis, MRSA and E. coli. After about an hour, the device will have identified which bacteria is present, as well as whether the bacteria has developed resistance to common antibiotics, Mooers said.

Armed with that information, the physician can switch the patient to the appropriate antibiotic much sooner, he said.

“We want to change the antibiotic as fast as possible to what’s going to kill the bacteria that’s making you sick,” Mooers said.

PeaceHealth Southwest laboratory employees recently completed the 20-day test period for the device and are now awaiting the program’s integration into the hospital’s electronic medical records system. Once that’s done — the target date is Nov. 1 — the device will be available for use in all PeaceHealth hospitals.