The incidence of syphilis is growing in California and in the United States (U.S.). The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend targeted syphilis screening of all persons at increased risk of infection. Emergency departments (EDs) represent an important setting to test and treat patients who are not seen in outpatient clinical settings. On November 27, 2018 the UC Davis emergency department developed and implemented an ED-based syphilis screening program that employed an electronic health record best practice alert (BPA). Over a period of 11 months post BPA, there was a 135% increase in syphilis diagnosis following BPA implementation. The screening program demonstrated that the use of a targeted BPA-driven screening protocol can increase the number of new syphilis diagnoses, without an increase in inappropriate testing. Furthermore, this screening strategy may also help capture patients in demographic groups who may otherwise not be offered testing in settings where screening is clinician-initiated.
Webinar attendees will be able to:
- Describe syphilis epidemiological trends in California
- Discuss current screening recommendations for syphilis
- Describe best practices for clinical management of syphilis including diagnosis, staging, treatment and follow-up
- Describe the implementation of a Syphilis Screening Program in the Emergency Department
Dr. Larissa May is Professor of Emergency Medicine and Director of Emergency Department Antibiotic Stewardship at the University of California-Davis. She is a national expert in antibiotic stewardship in the emergency department (ED). Dr. May received her M.D., her MSPH in Public Health Microbiology and Emerging Infectious Diseases, and her MSHS in Clinical and Translational Research from The George Washington University. Dr. May’s research interests center on clinical infectious disease epidemiology and management, with a particular focus on the application of rapid molecular diagnostic assays, behavioral economics and clinical guidelines to improve antibiotic stewardship in the ED. Dr. May has served as an investigator on multiple federally-funded and industry-funded trials evaluating antimicrobial stewardship strategies in the ED. She has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles in her field. She has also served on numerous committees and task forces focused on antibiotic stewardship, emergency preparedness, and infectious diseases surveillance for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and professional organizations including the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America.
Tasleem Chechi is the Program Manager for the Emergency Department Public Health Screening Program at the University of California-Davis. Tasleem Chechi received her MPH from Touro University- California. She has over 10 years of experience in research, community health and epidemiology. She has worked at several local Health Departments as a Sr. Health Educator and a supervisor for the Health Education Unit. In addition, she has undergone FEMA Emergency Management Institute Public Information Officer training and was a Public Information Office for Sutter County for 1.5 years. She has extensive public speaking skills and presented at presented at various sectors on community health issues, such as tobacco, alcohol, infectious diseases, emergency preparedness during natural disasters. She has published peer-reviewed articles on clinical trials and on health disparities. She has also served on numerous committees and task forces focused on community health, emergency preparedness, and chronic and infectious diseases surveillance for local Health Departments.
One complimentary CE unit will be provided to dues-paying member hospitals of the Hospital Quality Institute, CHPSO Patient Safety Organization, the California Hospital Association or the regional hospital associations in CA.
HQI is an approved continuing education (CE) provider by the California Board of Registered Nursing and will provide CHPSO members an opportunity to earn CEs. Provider Number CEP16793 for 1.0 contact hour.
HQI does not currently offer ACPE approved Pharmacy CE, but the State of California will accept CE from courses which have been approved for continuing education by the Medical Board of California, the California Board of Podiatric Medicine, the California Board of Registered Nursing or the Dental Board of California towards their California continuing education requirement (Section 1732.2(b) of the California Code of Regulations). Pharmacists need to keep track of CE from these sources on their own as they are not submitted to NAPB.
Click here to register for this webinar.