Rapid BCID Saved Costs and Reduced Healthcare Worker-Patient Interaction Time During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare workers across many functions have struggled to keep up with managing patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection. However, those in the medical and scientific community know that there were many untreated medical conditions that persisted from before the start of the pandemic through to present day. While some things like elective surgeries were able to be placed on a brief hold, others like bacteremia and fungemia were not able to wait for safer days due to the severity of these infections.

Professor Breida Boyle of St. James’s Hospital has been managing patients with bloodstream infections both before and during the pandemic. Prof. Boyle began evaluating molecular technologies prior to the pandemic to help the laboratory provide faster results to the clinical team treating patients with bacteremia and fungemia. With the ePlex® Blood Culture Identification (BCID) Panels, she performed a study looking at how well the panels compared to their standard of care using conventional microbiology methods. Prof. Boyle also looked at how the panels could help enhance antimicrobial and antifungal prescribing along with assessing cost savings associated with running the panels.

Fast forward to present day where Prof. Boyle, alongside her laboratory, have implemented the BCID panels and assessed how the panels have assisted St. James’s Hospital during the pandemic. In a recent study, Prof. Boyle took a closer look at how the panels could help cut costs in the hospital, as well as how they could reduce length of stay. Prof. Boyle also evaluated how the panels can improve outcomes while also resulting in healthcare worker time savings and safety during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Professor Breida Boyle, MB.B.Ch.B.A.O, FRCPI, FRCPath(UK), FFPath(RCPI), PG Dip. HIC (UK)., Consultant Microbiologist, St. James`s Hospital, Department of Clinical Microbiology, Trinity College Dublin

Professor Boyle is a consultant microbiologist at St. James’s Hospital and a clinical associate professor at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. She is currently secretary of the European Union Committee of Medical Specialists in the Section of Medical Microbiology and treasurer of the European Union Committee of Medical Specialists (Multidisciplinary Joint Committee in Infection Control). She is also one of the instigators and examination subcommittee members for the European Examination in Medical Microbiology.

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Professor Boyle’s specialist interests are in medical education including concept instigator and curricula author at undergraduate, postgraduate and fellowship level. She is the author of numerous postgraduate curricula including Masters in Healthcare Infection (Management) Trinity College Dublin, and post CSCST Clinical Microbiology fellowship in transplantation medicine hematopoietic stem cell and national transplant coordination for the Royal College Physicians Ireland.

Professor Boyle’s main research interests are healthcare associated infection including aspects of prevention and economics of healthcare associated infection. She has published and presented internationally on a wide range of clinical microbiology topics including: infection therapeutics, MDROs, Helicobacter pylori, Clostriodioidies difficile, zoonosis, antimicrobial diagnostic stewardship and translational microbiology, reflecting her busy clinical practice.

She also participates on multiple industry sponsored advisory boards dating back to 2017 and served as Enterprise Ireland Commercialization Fund Programme Evaluator and is a member of many additional international committees.

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