UPMC makes contact with ID Connect

US-based telemedicine spinout Infectious Disease (ID) Connect made its formal debut yesterday to commercialise University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s (UPMC’s) expertise in helping hospitals treat infectious diseases.
ID Connect already provides infectious disease assistance through its telemedicine platform to 10 UPMC-operated hospitals and five other healthcare centres.
The services aim to contain the spread of hospital-borne infections and limit other infectious disease risks such as antibiotic misuse.
ID Connect now aims to expand its client base by catering its services towards small acute care hospitals in the US that may struggle to recruit infectious disease specialists on a permanent basis.
The company is currently staffed by specialists from UPMC, but will recruit physicians from elsewhere as it expands into new markets.
Eventually, it hopes to also offer services to patients at home following hospital discharge, and to medical clients outside the US. ID Connect is currently a subsidiary of UPMC Enterprises, the medical centre’s innovation and commercialisation unit.
The business was started by co-founders Rima Abdel-Massih, director of tele-infectious disease services at UPMC, and John Mellors, chief of the division of infectious diseases at both UPMC and University of Pittsburgh.
Rima Abdel-Massih, now chief medical officer of ID Connect, said: “With the growing threat of drug-resistant organisms and costly government penalties for healthcare-associated infections, it has never been more critical for hospitals to properly diagnose, treat and prevent such infections.”