Advocate Health Awarded PCORI Funding to Improve Antibiotic Prescribing in Pediatric Patients

An Advocate Health team has been approved for a Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) funding award to help improve antibiotic prescribing for children with acute respiratory tract infections in outpatient settings. 

The project will be led by Thomas Dilworth, PharmD, associate vice president of pharmacy clinical services at Advocate Health, and Amy Margeson, group vice president of enterprise quality at Advocate Health. 

“Antibiotic resistance is a growing public health concern,” Dilworth said. “This resistance can make it difficult to treat bacterial infections, leading to more costly treatments and adverse effects.” 

To help address these concerns, Dilworth and Margeson will implement Improving Antibiotic Prescribing for Ambulatory Pediatrics (I-MAPP), a project designed to improve antibiotic prescribing for pediatric patients diagnosed with acute respiratory infections such as sinusitis, pneumonia and pharyngitis. 

The project aims to improve antibiotic prescribing and stewardship by implementing findings from a PCORI-funded patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research (CER) study, demonstrating that narrow-spectrum antibiotics were as effective as broad-spectrum antibiotics in treating acute respiratory tract infections among children, with fewer side effects.  

Margeson said the project will build on previous work at Advocate Health through its Antimicrobial Stewardship Program, which began in 2018.  

“We are committed to expanding this program to ensure that clinical and support staff are well-educated on the critical importance of antimicrobial stewardship,” Margeson said. “By providing comprehensive educational tools and resources, we hope to enhance the quality of care and promote best practices in the use of antimicrobials.” 

I-MAPP will include more than 260 Advocate Health outpatient sites in Illinois and Wisconsin including pediatric clinics, urgent cares, emergency departments, and family and internal medicine clinics. 

The program will include several tools to support providers, such as enhanced electronic health records to improve prescribing, access to robust data reporting and education to improve best practices. 

Advocate Health is a participant in PCORI’s Health Systems Implementation Initiative (HSII) and was selected for funding through a PCORI funding opportunity recruiting HSII participants to promote evidence-based practice based on findings generated from PCORI-funded patient-centered CER. HSII aims to reduce the estimated 17-year gap between evidence publication and clinical application. This initiative recognizes that health systems’ practical experience and real-world insights are crucial for sustainable, large-scale implementation of practice-changing findings in clinical care.  

This funding award has been approved pending completion of PCORI’s business and programmatic review and issuance of a formal award contract. 

PCORI is a nonprofit organization with a mission to fund research that will provide patients, their caregivers and clinicians with the evidence-based information needed to make better-informed healthcare decisions.