Model informed clinical care in surgical and critically ill patients

Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) remain a major cause of morbidity and mortality in hospitalized patients, particularly among those undergoing surgery or admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU). Surgical site infections (SSIs) and infections in critically ill patients—including hospital-acquired pneumonia, intra-abdominal infections, and bloodstream infections—require effective antibiotic strategies to reduce risk and improve outcomes. Despite widespread use of antibiotics such as cefazolin, ampicillin-sulbactam, and piperacillin-tazobactam, optimal dosing and redosing strategies remain inadequately defined. All three agents are β-lactam antibiotics characterized by short half-lives (~1–2 hours) and predominant renal clearance. These features necessitate precise redosing to maintain effective drug levels, yet current guidelines often fail to account for individual patient variability. This project utilizes pharmacometric modeling to address these gaps and develop optimized, evidence-based dosing strategies for surgical and critically ill populations.