AURORA, Colo. – UCHealth, a nationally recognized health care system based in Colorado, is partnering with RxREVU, the leader in prescription clinical decision support, to help reduce antibiotic resistance and improve patient care.

Antibiotic resistance has become a major issue in the U.S., and a recent Pew Charitable Trusts report concluded that 30% of antibiotic prescriptions are unnecessary. This results in nearly 47 million excess prescriptions each year, leading the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to propose a new mandate requiring all hospitals to have an antibiotic stewardship program.

“We know that providers at almost every health care facility in the nation are over-prescribing antibiotics. The main cause of this issue is the lack of actionable information when we are evaluating our patients,” said Dr. Richard Zane, UCHealth’s chief innovation officer, executive director of emergency services, and chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. “RxREVU is a digital health company that provides critical antibiotic information and integrates that data directly into the clinical workflow within our electronic health record system.”

The new technology is first being implemented at the University of Colorado Hospital Emergency Department, the second busiest emergency facility in the Rocky Mountain region. Later in 2016 and 2017, RxREVU will be introduced at additional UCHealth hospitals and medical departments.

The University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus has been integral in the implementation and funding of the RxREVU technology.

RxREVU provides:

• Antibiograms – information about a bacterial strain’s resistance to different antibiotics
• Insurance coverage and prescription cost – linked to individual patients’ insurance plans
• Prescribing recommendations – specific to individual illnesses and diagnoses
• Integration in electronic medical record – puts info at providers’ fingertips

“By immediately providing this important information to doctors when they’re evaluating patients, we can help them know if an antibiotic is recommended, and which one will best treat the patient’s infection. This will improve outcomes for patients while simultaneously decreasing unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions,” said Carm Huntress, RxREVU CEO. “UCHealth is an innovative health care system that puts patients first, and we are excited to partner with them to introduce this new technology.”

UCHealth’s electronic medical record, Epic, uses clinical workflow pathways to direct recommended tests, treatments and escalating levels of medical care. RxREVU’s prescription decision support platform is integrated into these pathways to assist physicians throughout the patient’s evaluation.

“Although we had already developed leading antibiotic prescribing protocols, we had no way to make them consistently applied at the point of care by our clinicians,” said Zane. “Now we will have the ability to standardize these protocols and measure the impact on outcomes using this tool.”

Variability and overuse in antibiotic prescribing allow bacteria to develop resistance over time, rendering the drugs incapable of helping patients fight infectious diseases. By prescribing the best antibiotic for a specific patient and ensuring each patient exactly follows treatment instructions, bacteria will be prevented from surviving past treatment and developing resistance.

The RxREVU technology will be available nationwide to hospitals and health systems later this year, and it will expand to include more real-time patient and population information. The system also aims to reduce costs incurred by patients, insurers and pharmacies by relaying insurance and cost information to providers.

“We are looking forward to expanding RxREVU’s clinical capabilities into other areas as our partnership continues to grow,” said Zane.

About RxREVU

RxREVU is a Denver based digital health company focused on Prescription Decision Support (PDS). RxREVU’s cloud-based RxCheck PDS platform leverages clinically validated prescribing protocols developed by our provider partners and existing electronic health record messaging, then enriches this information with patient-centered data including patient cost and adherence and other critical clinical information not stored within electronic health records. RxCheck enables dynamic and hard-wired communication at the point of care to drive consistent prescribing, lower costs, informed adherence, and improvement in quality metrics.

About UCHealth

UCHealth is a Front Range health system that delivers the highest quality patient care with the highest quality patient experience.  UCHealth combines Memorial Hospital, Poudre Valley Hospital, Medical Center of the Rockies, Colorado Health Medical Group, and University of Colorado Hospital into an organization dedicated to health and providing unmatched patient care in the Rocky Mountain West. Separately, these institutions can continue providing superior care to patients and service to the communities they serve. Together, they push the boundaries of medicine, attracting more research funding, hosting more clinical trials and improving health through innovation.

UCHealth Contact: Paula Freund (720) 848-5809 or [email protected]

RxREVU Contact: Susan Francisco (800) 360-4965 or [email protected]