PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania Center for Education and Research on Therapeutics (Penn CERT) will receive $4 million over the next four years to continue and expand its work on improving the use of therapies for infections.
The Penn CERT is a collaboration among Penn’s Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, the Leonard Davis Institute, and the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, as well as The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
“This award allows us to continue and expand our work in improving the use of antibiotics, incorporating the new tools of health IT,” says Penn CERT director Brian Strom, MD, George S. Pepper Professor of Public Health & Preventive Medicine. “It is an indication of Penn's national stature in patient safety, especially in the use of drugs.”
Penn’s CERT will concentrate on the:
- Effectiveness of new healthcare information technology on improving the use of preventive antibiotics given before operations,
- Impact of clinical laboratory text message alerts to physicians for instituting appropriate antimicrobial therapies for patients,
- Effect of public reporting on the incidence of hospital-acquired infections, and
- Evaluation of disseminating pediatric anti-microbial information.
The Penn award is part of the federal government’s $41.6 million expansion of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)’s CERT program, which is under the US Department of Health and Human Services.
“This expansion allows AHRQ to build a strong evidence base that consumers, clinicians, and others can use to make critical treatment decisions about therapeutic products and interventions, “ says AHRQ Director Carolyn M. Clancy, MD. “The increased number and breadth of expertise in the CERTs will broaden the range of knowledge to help the health care system make measurable improvements in the quality and safety of medications and other treatments and health care.”
The CERTs program now consists of a new coordinating center and 14 university-based research centers (http://www.certs.hhs.gov/).
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faculty practice plan; a primary-care provider network; two multispecialty
satellite facilities; and home care and hospice.
Penn Medicine is one of the world’s leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, excellence in patient care, and community service. The organization consists of the University of Pennsylvania Health System and Penn’s Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine, founded in 1765 as the nation’s first medical school.
The Perelman School of Medicine is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $550 million awarded in the 2022 fiscal year. Home to a proud history of “firsts” in medicine, Penn Medicine teams have pioneered discoveries and innovations that have shaped modern medicine, including recent breakthroughs such as CAR T cell therapy for cancer and the mRNA technology used in COVID-19 vaccines.
The University of Pennsylvania Health System’s patient care facilities stretch from the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania to the New Jersey shore. These include the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, Chester County Hospital, Lancaster General Health, Penn Medicine Princeton Health, and Pennsylvania Hospital—the nation’s first hospital, founded in 1751. Additional facilities and enterprises include Good Shepherd Penn Partners, Penn Medicine at Home, Lancaster Behavioral Health Hospital, and Princeton House Behavioral Health, among others.
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