Advanced Treatment & Care
 
Quicker and More Reliable Results. CultureStat gives doctors results in a time frame that they can use to affect initial treatment/diagnosis of the problem, dramatically improving patient care.  Patients can be properly treated for UTI’s or, if results are negative, tested for other conditions more quickly.  Studies show that UTI’s in pregnant women can lead to an increased risk of birth defects; the CultureStat test can determine whether a pregnant woman should be treated for UTI’s more quickly and reduce the likelihood of complications.  Women that enter a hospital with pelvic pain (which have a vast number of potential causes) are usually given an ultrasound and a urine test in the ER which is sent for culture. By using CultureStat, ER personnel will receive initial results from the urine test in 30-60 minutes (at roughly the same time as the completion of the ultrasound), so doctors can correctly diagnose the condition more quickly and determine a course of treatment, rather than admitting the patient and waiting 24 hours or more for the results of the urine culture.

Controlling Antibiotic Prescriptions. Presently almost all symptomatic patients are prescribed antibiotics because it will be 48-72 hours before any results are communicated to doctors. For elderly patients and other sick patients, the ability to (a) prescribe the right antibiotic to combat a UTI and (b) refrain from prescribing antibiotics if the patient does not have a UTI is tremendously important. Antibiotics can interact with other medicines and/or diseases within the body to the detriment of the patient, so avoiding the unnecessary ingestion of antibiotics by sick or elderly patients is essential. Antibiotics can sometimes produce “opportunistic infections”, which are new infections in the body caused by the change in body flora as a result of the antibiotics.

By getting feedback within a few hours, doctors can hold back prescribing such antibiotics if the test comes back negative. For patients where the source of symptoms is unknown (as is often the case with elderly patients), the ability to recognize a UTI as quickly as possible is essential to provide the proper care for such patient. Left untreated for 3-4 days, a UTI in a sick or elderly patient can lead to the patient getting sicker, developing sepsis, or death.

Fighting Problem of Antibiotic Resistance. Many experts are concerned with the inappropriate use of antibiotics and the growing problem of antibiotic resistance caused, in part, by antibiotics that are unnecessarily prescribed. By giving doctors negative results in two hours or less, CultureStat will drastically reduce the number of antibiotics prescribed, which will in turn combat the antibiotic resistance problem.
 
In addition to the advantages of CultureStat for patient treatment and care, there are tremendous economic advantages to the system for hospitals and independent laboratories.  To learn more about these economic advantages, click here.