Department of Pediatrics

Pediatric Intensive Care Research

Charles J. Mullett, MD, PhD
Background
Dr. Mullett is a pediatric intensivist with extra training and a degree in medical informatics, the field at the crossroads of medicine and computerized information systems. He has partnered with WVU specialists in microbiology and infectious disease to develop a computerized antibiotic selection program. This group hypothesizes that the large database of past microbiology cultures could be employed to provide insight and guidance to physicians, and they have developed an antimicrobial selection guidance system founded on five-year data that is augmented by expert infectious disease logic. The system uses case-matching techniques to identify potential pathogens, and uses the measured and derived antimicrobial susceptibility results to project potential effective antimicrobial therapy. The system’s final antimicrobial recommendations consider costs, toxicities, and ecological impact of antimicrobial use, and can also be tailored to age, renal and hepatic impairments, and pregnancy status of the patient under consideration.

The goals of this project are to improve the rates of initiation of effective empiric therapy by using precisely targeted antimicrobials, to stabilize the rate of the development of antimicrobial resistance in the local environment, and to minimize costs and toxicities of antimicrobial use.