ACORN

ACORN integrates clinical and microbiological data for case-based antimicrobial resistance (AMR) surveillance by linking patient-level clinical metadata with laboratory results to support epidemiological analysis.

Key Features:

• Integration of Clinical and Microbiological Data: Combines patient-level clinical metadata with diagnostic microbiology results to create linked clinical–microbiology datasets for case-based surveillance.
• Compatibility with WHO GLASS: Formats and outputs data compatible with the World Health Organization’s Global Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System (GLASS) for standardized reporting.
• Data Stratification and Summary Metrics: Enables stratification by syndrome and other relevant metadata and generates summary metrics for analysis and local guideline development.
• Diagnostic Stewardship and Capacity Capture: Captures site and laboratory capacity information and incorporates diagnostic stewardship guidance to support high-quality data collection and interpretation.
• Case-based Surveillance Approach: Implements case-based rather than isolate- or sample-based surveillance to provide contextualized AMR data and more actionable insights.

Scientific Applications:

• Surveillance of Infectious Syndromes: Monitors AMR patterns among patients with community- or hospital-acquired pneumonia, sepsis, and meningitis.
• Pathogen-specific Resistance Monitoring: Detects and tracks resistance phenotypes such as third-generation cephalosporin resistance in E. coli and K. pneumoniae and methicillin resistance in S. aureus.
• Informing Clinical Guidelines and Policy: Provides case-linked AMR data to inform local treatment guidelines and national AMR policy development.
• Estimation of Incidence and Outcomes: Supports estimation of incidence, clinical outcomes, and antimicrobial susceptibility of target pathogens among patients with infectious syndromes.

Methodology:

Clinical and microbiological data are collected from patients across participating healthcare facilities for case-based surveillance.