image source: © UKJ/Schroll

University Hospital RWTH Aachen begins intervention phase in the Use Case HELP

Responsible use of antibiotics


On February 1, 2021, the first units of the University Hospital RWTH Aachen, which are involved in the HELP Study, have moved from the control phase to the intervention phase. The clinical Use Case HELP of the SMITH Consortium is dedicated to responsible antibiotic therapy in staphylococcal bloodstream infections. The HELP App, developed for this purpose under the leadership of the University Hospital Jena, supports the diagnostic and therapeutic procedure. Guideline-based, the mobile application provides the attending physicians with information on the next diagnostic and therapeutic steps and is thus intended to facilitate the work of infectious diseases specialists in normal and intensive care units. In addition to a direct improvement in patient care, this also contributes indirectly to the avoidance of antibiotic-related multi-resistant infections and to the optimization of inpatient consultation by infectiologists.

The HELP App has already been in use at the University Hospital site in Jena since mid-August 2020 and in Leipzig since October. With the start of the intervention phase in Aachen, the HELP App will now be integrated into everyday clinical practice in a two-month rhythm on 10 intensive care units and 14 normal units. The data required for the study is provided by the participating Data Integration Centers (DIC) in an interoperable data format based on FHIR and the Medical Informatics Initiative (MII) core data set. The university hospitals of Aachen, Essen, Halle, Jena and Leipzig are collaborating in the study.

More information on the HELP Study can be found here.