UCI Health Dr. Susan Huang is one of OC’s most influential people

UCI Health Dr. Susan Huang is one of OC's most influential people

Infectious diseases expert honored for her antibiotic-resistance research

Orange, Calif. - Nationally known infectious diseases leader Dr. Susan Huang, MD, MPH, has been named on of The Orange County Register's 125 most influential people. She was chosen among a population of 3.2 million people for her transformative, groundbreaking research into the antibiotic resistance public health crisis.

Huang is among the nation's leading clinicians and researchers in the field of infection prevention and combatting multi-drug resistant organisms. She is responsible for developing infection prevention protocols that protect the lives of patients locally and nationally. Huang was recently appointed to the Presidential Advisory Council on Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria. The council advises the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services on strategies to combat antimicrobial resistance.

Specializing in prevention of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in hospitals and nursing homes, her research has been developed into protocols that have been adopted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the OC Health Care Agency and health institutions across the nation.

In 2023, Huang and colleagues published two landmark studies related to reducing healthcare-associated infections. Their findings published in theNew England Journal of Medicine show that using a simple bathing routine to clean the skin with an over-the-counter antiseptic soap and a nasal ointment prevents serious infections and reduces the amount of antibiotic resistant organisms in nursing homes by nearly one third.

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) involving more than 800,000 intensive care unit patients in 137 hospitals found that a nasal antibiotic ointment not widely used is highly effective at preventing Staphylococcus aureus infections in critically ill patients than an antiseptic solution.

In July, Huang and a national team of investigators were awarded a $13.7 million, five-year grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to address the growing problem of multidrug resistant organisms (MDROs) in nursing homes throughout the United States.

Huang and the investigators will study six antibiotic-resistant MDROs deemed as serious and urgent national health threats.

Over the last 20 years, Huang has led work funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and other U.S. Department of Health and Human Services agencies showing that decolonization of bacteria on patients is an effective tool to reduce or prevent serious infections for at-risk healthcare populations. This has led to pragmatic practices widely used in U.S. hospitals today. Her recent work has proven the benefit of these interventions in nursing homes and led to the development of training and educational tools to enable broad adoption.

Huang is the medical director of epidemiology and infection prevention at UCI Health and a chancellor's professor of medicine at the UCI School of Medicine. Her pioneering innovations have significantly improved patient care at UCI Medical Center and in more than two dozen nursing homes Orange and Los Angeles counties. These protocols have been adopted by healthcare systems around the nation.

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UCI Health is the clinical enterprise of the University of California, Irvine, and the only academic health system in Orange County. Patients can access UCI Health at primary and specialty care offices across Orange County and at its main campus, UCI Medical Center in Orange, Calif. The 459-bed, acute care hospital, listed among America's Best Hospitals by U.S. News & World Report for 23 consecutive years, provides tertiary and quaternary care, ambulatory and specialty medical clinics, behavioral health and rehabilitation services. UCI Medical Center is home to Orange County's only National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center, high-risk perinatal/neonatal program and American College of Surgeons-verified Level I adult and Level II pediatric trauma center, gold level 1 geriatric emergency department and regional burn center. UCI Health serves a region of nearly 4 million people in Orange County, western Riverside County and southeast Los Angeles County. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.