WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--IMS Health (NYSE:IMS) is a key participant in the White House Forum on Antibiotic Stewardship, held today to guide action by public health, healthcare, food production and animal health stakeholders in addressing the challenge of drug-resistant bacteria strains in the U.S. and around the globe. Forum participants are collaborating to support the implementation of the National Action Plan announced earlier this year by the White House to combat the overuse and misuse of antibiotics.
As part of this initiative, IMS Health will continue to provide the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) with information and analysis for understanding treatment patterns and outcomes – including insights into trends, patterns and variations of use for antimicrobial medicines in the interest of public health.
“In our ongoing collaboration with the CDC, we have identified significant regional and local variability in antibiotic use across the U.S. Those findings highlight the implications of misusing these drugs, and are at the core of this White House initiative,” said Robert Hunkler, IMS Health director of Professional Relations and White House Forum attendee. “We welcome the opportunity to expand on this important work, applying real-world evidence and advanced analytics to help address this urgent public health threat.”
The overuse and misuse of antibiotics are driving factors behind the rising number of drug-resistant bacteria strains, which lead to two million illnesses and approximately 23,000 deaths annually in the U.S. alone, according to CDC estimates. The National Action Plan provides a roadmap to slow the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, detect resistant strains, preserve the efficacy of existing antibiotics, and prevent the spread of resistant infections over the next five years.
About IMS Health
IMS Health (NYSE:IMS) is a leading global information and technology services company providing clients in the healthcare industry with comprehensive solutions to measure and improve their performance. End-to-end proprietary applications and configurable solutions connect 10+ petabytes of complex healthcare data through the IMS One™ cloud platform, providing comprehensive insights into diseases, treatments, costs and outcomes. The company’s 15,000 employees blend global consistency and local market knowledge across 100 countries to help clients run their operations more efficiently. Customers include pharmaceutical, consumer health and medical device manufacturers and distributors, providers, payers, government agencies, policymakers, researchers and the financial community.
As a global leader in protecting individual patient privacy, IMS Health uses anonymous healthcare data to deliver critical, real-world disease and treatment insights. These insights help biotech and pharmaceutical companies, medical researchers, government agencies, payers and other healthcare stakeholders to identify unmet treatment needs and understand the effectiveness and value of pharmaceutical products in improving overall health outcomes. Additional information is available at www.imshealth.com.