Skip to Content
800-533-8762
  • Careers
  • Newsroom
  • Health Care Professionals
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
UPMC
  • Find a Doctor
  • Services
    • Frequently Searched Services
    • Frequently Searched Services
      Allergy & Immunology Behavioral & Mental Health Cancer Ear, Nose & Throat Endocrinology Gastroenterology Heart & Vascular Imaging Neurosciences Orthopaedics
      Physical Rehabilitation Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery Primary Care Senior Services Sports Medicine Telemedicine Transplant Surgery Walk-In Care Weight Management Women’s Health
      See all Services
    • Services by Region
    • Find a UPMC health care facility close to you quickly by browsing by region.
      UPMC in Western Pa. Western Pa. and New York
      UPMC in Central Pa. Central Pa.
      UPMC in North Central Pa. North Central Pa.
      UPMC in Western Md. Maryland & West Virginia
    • See All Services
  • Locations
    • Locations by Type
    • Locations by Type
      UPMC hospitals
      Hospitals
      Physical Therapy
      Physical Therapy
      Urgent care
      Walk-In Care
      UPMC Outpatient Centers
      Outpatient Centers
      UPMC Imaging Services
      Imaging
      Community Health Centers
      Community Health Centers
      See All Locations
    • Locations by Region
    • Locations by Region
      UPMC in Southwest Pa. Southwest Pa.
      UPMC in North Central Pa. North Central Pa.
      UPMC in Northwest Pa and Ny. Northwest Pa. & Western N.Y.
      UPMC in West Central Pa. West Central Pa.
      UPMC in Central Pa. Central Pa.
      UPMC in Western Md. Maryland & West Virginia
    • See All Locations
  • Patients & Visitors
    • Patient & Visitor Resources
    • Patient & Visitor Resources
      Patients and Visitors Resources Pay a Bill Classes & Events Medical Records Health Library Patient Information
      Patient Portals Privacy Information Shared Decision Making Traveling Patients Visitor Information
      Man uses mobile phone
      Pay a Bill
      Nurse reviews medical chart
      Request Medical Records
  • Patient Portals
  • Find Covid-19 updates
  • Schedule an appointment
  • Request medical records
  • Pay a bill
  • Learn about financial assistance
  • Find classes & events
  • Send a patient an eCard
  • Make a donation
  • Volunteer
  • Read HealthBeat blog
  • Explore UPMC Careers
Skip to Content
UPMC
  • Patient Portals
  • For Patients & Visitors
    • Find a Doctor
    • Locations
    • Patient & Visitor Resources
    • Pay a Bill
    • Services
    • More
      • Medical Records
      • Financial Assistance
      • Classes & Events
      • HealthBeat Blog
      • Health Library
  • About UPMC
    • Why UPMC
    • Facts & Stats
    • Supply Chain Management
    • Community Commitment
    • More
      • Financials
      • Support UPMC
      • UPMC Apps
      • UPMC Enterprises
      • UPMC International
  • For Health Care Professionals
    • Physician Information
    • Resources
    • Education & Training
    • Departments
    • Credentialing
  • Careers
  • Contact Us
  • Newsroom
  • UPMC >
  • Media Relations >
  • News Releases >
  • 042825 Detection System
Media Relations
News Releases
Central Pa. News
North Central Pa. News
Contact Us
Experts
Community-Focused News
Media Kits
Media RSS
Media Relations
News Releases
Central Pa. News
North Central Pa. News
Contact Us
Experts
Community-Focused News
Media Kits
Media RSS

Chat Keywords List

  • cancel or exit: Stops your conversation
  • start over: Restarts your current scenario
  • help: Shows what this bot can do
  • terms: Shows terms of use and privacy statement
  • feedback: Give us feedback
Continue
Chat with UPMC
RESTART
MENU
CLOSE

Pitt-Developed Outbreak Detection System Saves Lives

For Journalists

Allison Hydzik
Director, Science and Research
412-647-9975
hydzikam@upmc.edu

Elaine Vitone
Manager
412-925-0320
vitoneeg@upmc.edu

Want to Make an Appointment or Need Patient Information?
Contact UPMC at

1-800-533-8762.

Go to Find a Doctor to search for a UPMC doctor.

2023 PITT HS

4/28/2025

PITTSBURGH – An infectious diseases detection platform developed by University of Pittsburgh scientists working with UPMC infection preventionists proved over a two-year trial that it stops outbreaks, saves lives and cuts costs. 

The results are published today in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, making the case for adoption in hospitals nationwide and the development of a national early outbreak detection database. 

“We saved lives while saving money. This isn’t theoretical – this happened in a real hospital with real patients,” said lead author Alexander Sundermann, Dr.P.H., assistant professor of infectious diseases in Pitt’s School of Medicine. “And it could easily be scaled. The more hospitals implement this practice, the more everyone benefits, not just by stopping previously undetected outbreaks within the walls of the hospital, but by finding medical device or medication-linked outbreaks sweeping the nation.”

The Enhanced Detection System for Healthcare-Associated Transmission (EDS-HAT) takes advantage of increasingly affordable genomic sequencing to analyze infectious disease samples from patients. When the sequencing detects that any two or more patients have near-identical strains of an infection, it flags the results for the hospital’s infection prevention team to find the commonality and stop the transmission. 

Without genomic sequencing, hospital infection preventionists have no way of knowing if two hospitalized patients coincidentally have the same infection or if one of them was infected by the other. Because of this, patients with the same type of infection who don’t have an obvious link – such as staying in the same inpatient unit – may unknowingly spread the infection, leading to an outbreak growing significantly before it is detected. Conversely, infection preventionists may spend time and resources trying to avert a nonexistent outbreak when patients happen to have the same type of infection, but the transmission was from unrelated sources. 

The study ran from November 2021 through October 2023 at UPMC Presbyterian Hospital. During that time, the analysis showed that EDS-HAT prevented 62 infections and five deaths, compared to if the system had not been running. It netted a savings of nearly $700,000 in infection treatment costs – a 3.2-fold return on investment. 

“These results are remarkable,” said co-author Graham Snyder, M.D., M.S., medical director of infection prevention and hospital epidemiology at UPMC. “This project clearly illustrates how UPMC’s academic partnership with Pitt is providing our patients with outstanding patient care while creating innovative solutions that pave the way for better patient care worldwide.”

If health care facilities across the U.S. adopt EDS-HAT, a nationwide outbreak system could be developed, similar to PulseNet, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s network for detecting multistate outbreaks of foodborne illness. Sundermann and colleagues previously found that, had such a system existed, the 2023 outbreak of deadly bacteria linked to contaminated eye drops could have been stopped far earlier.  

“It is a no-brainer to implement EDS-HAT at every health care facility nationwide,” said senior author Lee Harrison, M.D., professor of infectious diseases at Pitt’s School of Medicine and of epidemiology at Pitt’s School of Public Health. “We hope these findings will contribute to ongoing conversations among U.S. health care leadership, payors and policymakers about the benefits of genomic surveillance as standard practice in health care.”

Additional authors of this research are Praveen Kumar, Ph.D., Marissa P. Griffith, Kady D. Waggle, M.S., Vatsala Rangachar Srinivasa, M.P.H., Nathan Raabe, M.P.H., Emma G. Mills, Hunter Coyle, Deena Ereifej, M.P.H., Hanna M. Creager, Ph.D., Ashley Ayres, M.B.A., Daria Van Tyne, Ph.D., Lora Lee Pless, Ph.D., and Mark Roberts, M.D., all of Pitt, UPMC or both. 

This work was supported by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases grant R01AI127472. 

UPMC
200 Lothrop Street Pittsburgh, PA 15213

412-647-8762 800-533-8762

Patients And Visitors
  • Find a Doctor
  • Locations
  • Pay a Bill
  • Patient & Visitor Resources
  • Disabilities Resource Center
  • Services
  • Medical Records
  • No Surprises Act
  • Price Transparency
  • Financial Assistance
  • Classes & Events
  • Health Library
Health Care Professionals
  • Physician Information
  • Resources
  • Education & Training
  • Departments
  • Credentialing
Newsroom
  • Newsroom Home
  • Inside Life Changing Medicine Blog
  • News Releases
About
  • Why UPMC
  • Facts & Stats
  • Supply Chain Management
  • Community Commitment
  • Financials
  • Supporting UPMC
  • HealthBeat Blog
  • UPMC Apps
  • UPMC Enterprises
  • UPMC Health Plan
  • UPMC International
  • Nondiscrimination Policy
Life changing is...
Follow UPMC
  • Contact Us
  • Website/Email Terms of Use
  • Medical Advice Disclaimer
  • Privacy Information
  • Active Privacy Alerts
  • Sitemap
© 2025 UPMC I Affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences Supplemental content provided by Healthwise, Incorporated. To learn more, visit healthwise.org
Find Care
Providers
Video Visit
Portal Login