Ginkgo Teams up with Yale New Haven Hospital on Infection Control and Prevention through Wastewater Testing

In the ever-evolving landscape of healthcare, early detection and prevention of disease outbreaks are paramount.

Current disease surveillance and infection control capabilities across most healthcare and public health systems focus on syndromic detection, missing asymptomatic spread, and a window of opportunity to deploy early impactful countermeasures and risk mitigation strategies. Yale New Haven Hospital (YNHH), in collaboration with Ginkgo Biosecurity, is spearheading a groundbreaking pilot program that leverages wastewater surveillance to identify opportunities to improve disease detection, hospital operations and ultimately quality of care. This initiative, supported by Dr. Richard Martinello’s Infectious Disease and Infection Prevention team along with research collaborators at the Peccia and Turner Labs – aims to transform how hospitals monitor and respond to infectious diseases.

The Vision Behind the Program

The primary objective of this three-month pilot is to assess the effectiveness of wastewater testing as an early warning system for identifying microbes often responsible for healthcare-associated infections and antimicrobial resistance, and rare, high-consequence pathogens within hospital settings. By analyzing wastewater from key locations around YNHH, the program seeks to provide critical insights into the presence of specific pathogens that are known to cause hospital-acquired infections, and to inform strategies for mitigating their impact. The insights gained from this program could lead to improved quality of care, patient outcomes, better staffing and supply chain management, and enhanced antibiotic prescription practices. Additional findings from this pilot could also pave the way for broader adoption of wastewater surveillance in hospitals, with the ultimate goal of contributing to better patient care and infection control.

Looking Ahead

This pilot represents a significant leap forward in the field of disease surveillance and hospital operations. By leveraging wastewater testing as an early warning system, this initiative endeavors to discover novel ways to not only detect pathogens and antimicrobial resistance more effectively, but also enhance overall hospital resource management, improve quality of care for patients, and potentially improve performance on federal and health plan quality improvement programs. The potential for broader adoption of this approach could revolutionize how healthcare systems monitor and respond to infectious diseases, setting a new standard for proactive and preventative healthcare and overall improvement in public health.