Abtrace
FACING THE CHALLENGES OF TOMORROW WITH INNOVATION TODAY
THE ABTRACE STORY
Abtrace is a previous winner of the EIT Health Wild Card programme, which challenges Europe’s innovators and game-changers, regardless of their background, to solve some of the most complex healthcare issues. Visit the Wild Card website to find out more about this programme.
Over a two-year period, EIT Health will provide Abtrace with access to resources that help fledgling ideas and businesses to grow and prosper, exposure to leading experts in healthcare, and funding. Abtrace processes healthcare data through an augmented decision-making tool, comparing it to billions of data points and presenting a recommendation for which, if any, antibiotic should be prescribed. The solution enables clinicians to make better informed decisions when prescribing antibiotics, helping to reduce overuse and misuse, which ultimately contributes to the fight against AMR.
The founders of Abtrace feel passionately about contributing to the fight against AMR, having seen the human cost of drug resistant organisms first hand in both their working and personal lives. They bring together complementary backgrounds – a frontline clinician and digital health innovator, a scientist and a biomedical engineer.
Team:
Cristina Correia, Helder Soares, and Umar Naeem Ahmad.
The growing threat of AMR
AMR is one of the biggest threats to global health today. 1 Currently, in Europe, it causes 25,000 deaths per year and 2.5m extra hospital days2 and that is set to increase. Every use of an antibiotic comes with a risk that resistance might develop. AMR is caused by certain bacteria becoming resistant to even the most powerful antibiotics available today, due to overuse and misuse. Resistant bacteria may infect an individual and become much harder to treat than infections caused by non-resistant bacteria.1 Antibiotic resistance leads to longer hospital stays, higher medical costs and increased mortality.1 A growing list of infections are becoming harder, and sometimes, impossible to treat, as antibiotics become less effective.1
Read moreThe fight against AMR: AI in action
Antibiotic resistance is accelerated by the misuse and overuse of antibiotics, as well as other factors such as poor infection prevention and control. Steps can be taken at all levels of society to reduce the impact and limit the spread of resistance, particularly by policy makers, healthcare professionals and the healthcare industry.1 Abtrace in particular uses artificial intelligence (AI), which can analyse vast sets of data quickly, to aggregate antibiotic prescription data from all over the world in a simple computer software tool. AI, in this instance, will help to inform the antibiotic prescribing process for clinicians, assisting in their decision making.
Read moreFighting resistance
By helping clinicians to prescribe the most appropriate antibiotic for each individual based on their healthcare needs and condition, Abtrace are tackling antibiotic overuse and misuse head-on. This will ultimately help in the fight against the advancement of resistance.
Read more25,000
of antibiotics prescribed are unnecessary or inappropriate.
Artificial Intelligence
is used by Abtrace to analyse and aggregate data from all over the world.
Helping clinicians
prescribe the most appropriate antibiotic for each individual.
Abtrace Spotlight PDF
World (2018). Antibiotic resistance. [online] Who.int. Available at: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/antibiotic-resistance [Accessed 28 June. 2019].
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2019). CDC Global Health – Infographics – Antibiotic Resistance The Global Threat. [online] Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/globalhealth/infographics/antibiotic-resistance/antibiotic_resistance_global_threat.htm [Accessed 28 Jun. 2019].
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