Professor of Medicine
Michael E DeBakey VA Medical Center
Barbara W. Trautner, M.D., Ph.D., is an infectious diseases clinician-investigator at Baylor College of Medicine and the Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center, affiliated with the Center for Innovations in Quality, Effectiveness, and Safety (IQuESt). Her primary research interest is the development of new strategies for the prevention of catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI). She has worked in this area for the past 20 years, supported first by an NIH K23 award and then by a VA Career Development Award. While on career development award support, Dr. Trautner obtained her PhD in clinical investigation from Baylor College of Medicine Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. Her interest in CAUTI prevention has led her to develop two productive branches of investigation, one in health services research and one in microbiology translational research.
Dr. Trautner’s outcomes research has focused on reducing antimicrobial overuse, particularly for the extremely common condition of catheter-associated asymptomatic bacteriuria. Her team completed a successful VA Health Services Research and Development merit review project utilizing guidelines implementation to decrease inappropriate treatment of catheter-associated asymptomatic bacteriuria. Her team is now studying how to best disseminate antibiotic stewardship for asymptomatic bacteriuria to multiple VA facilities. Dr. Trautner also was a co-investigator a nationwide project funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to decrease CAUTI and antimicrobial overuse in long-term care facilities.
Dr. Trautner is the director of clinical and health services research in the Department of Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine, and she is a co-program director of the surgical NHLBI T32 training program. At IQuESt she is the primary mentor for five faculty members developing as health service researchers.
Disclosure: Nothing to disclose
