Reducing the use of broad-spectrum antibiotics
UCI Health infectious disease expert’s research is dedicated to improving use, understanding of the medication
IN THE NEWS: Antibiotic resistance is a major public health threat. Broad spectrum antibiotics are major contributors to the problem, says Dr. Shruti Gohil, the associate medical director of epidemiology and infection prevention at UCI Health, in Healio.
“When we use broad-spectrum antibiotics, we make more antibiotic-resistant organisms.”
Such antibiotics can also cause harm to the liver, kidney and microbiome, says Gohil, whose INSPIRE clinical trials found that computerized prompts for clinicians in the hospital significantly reduced the prescription of them for patients who were at low risk for infection.
“A single antibiotic, that’s all you need to hit your microbiome and obliterate the good bacteria that keep us healthy. Antibiotics are indiscriminate in that way. They will kill all bacteria, both the ones that keep us healthy and those that make us sick. That’s why it’s important that we use these antibiotics carefully. It’s the best way to preserve our healthy microbes.”
Gohil is an associate professor of infectious diseases at the UC Irvine School of Medicine. Her clinical interests include hospital epidemiology, infection prevention, communicable disease transmission and multidrug-resistant organism infections.
Her research is dedicated to evaluating the epidemiology of infections and designing pragmatic approaches for identifying high risk patients to prevent infections at the earliest opportunity. Her intent is to design innovative clinical decision tools in detecting and preventing multidrug-resistant organism and healthcare-associated infections across care settings.
Gohil led INSPIRE, a series of national studies to assess patient risk for multidrug-resistant bacterial infections and to prompt physicians to limit the use of extended-spectrum antibacterial drugs in real time. She is a member of The Infectious Diseases Society of America and the Society of Healthcare Epidemiologists in America.
About UCI Health
UCI Health is one of California’s largest academic health systems and the clinical enterprise of the University of California, Irvine. Established on July 1, 1976, UCI Health has grown into a 1,461-bed health system that includes UCI Health — Orange, UCI Health — Irvine, four Community Network hospitals and a growing network of ambulatory care centers across Orange and Los Angeles counties. As Orange County’s only academic health systems, UCI Health is home to the only National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center based in the county, the region’s only American College of Surgeons-verified Level I adult and Level II pediatric trauma center, American College of Emergency Physicians Gold Level 1 Geriatric Emergency Department and a nationally recognized regional burn center verified by the American Burn Association. Powered by UC Irvine, UCI Health serves 5.6 million people across Orange County, western Riverside County and southeast Los Angeles County through excellence in patient care, research and medical education. Follow UCI Health on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and X.