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Global Antimicrobial Resistance Informatics Initiatives

APHL collaborates closely with federal and international partners to improve laboratory data management worldwide. We support several global antimicrobial resistance (AR) initiatives by conducting project discovery and developing and deploying information system solutions.

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Global AR Laboratory and Response Network

The Global AR Laboratory and Response Network is a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) initiative that provides a collaborative global approach to better detect and respond to AR threats across the world. It spans nearly 50 countries and works with more than 20 organizations.  

We support this initiative by gathering information on AR surveillance data systems, providing resources and recommendations for scaling AR informatics, and participating in projects to aid global AR informatics initiatives.  

  • PulseNet International 
    Learn more about our programmatic support for the Global AR Laboratory & Response Network via PulseNet International

Global AR Informatics Discovery Project

The implementation of effective AR surveillance informatics solutions is a major challenge as segments of laboratories bring on whole genome sequencing, which produces large amounts of data that requires analysis and innovative technical solutions. The integration of phenotypic testing data to local, national and regional systems can also be an informatics challenge in international settings due to the complexity of the data elements, limitations in laboratory information systems or lack of resources. Differences in systems, resources, infrastructure and capacity dictate how a given country establishes an antimicrobial resistance surveillance system.

To assess the scope of informatics needs of AR surveillance systems in the Asia-Pacific and Africa regions, we conducted a landscape analysis with support and guidance from CDC, and the help of J. Michael Consulting and Theiagen Genomics. Institutions participated from Bangladesh, Kenya, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Mozambique and Zambia.

In Fall 2025, this same team launched an extension project to interview additional countries in Latin America and North Africa/Middle East. This extension will add to the existing documentation, expand the country reports and resource toolkit, and develop an AR pathogen pipeline selection algorithm.

The surveyed countries participated voluntarily in this study, through structured interviews guided by a predefined discovery form with detailed sets of questions. The information collected included key domains such as national laboratory network structure, antimicrobial resistance reference laboratory capacity, surveillance systems (both phenotypic and sequencing-based), clinical laboratory practices and data systems. 

The findings in the landscape analysis covered key aspects such as used frameworks, bioinformatics and informatics infrastructure, reporting methods and global collaborative initiatives. The challenges faced in establishing effective antimicrobial resistance surveillance data flows were documented and evidence-based recommendations for improving AR surveillance through enhanced sequencing capacity, informatics tools and data visualization platforms were included. In addition, a resource toolkit was developed that includes the bioinformatics tools and pipelines and laboratory informatics data storage and integration solutions identified during the discovery project. 

Global Action in Healthcare Network

The Global Action in Healthcare Network (GAIHN) is a collaborative network consisting of countries, institutions, and partners at global, regional, national and subnational levels instituted by CDC. These constituents work together to address emerging threats in healthcare settings through prevention, detection and response. We work with CDC and the GAIHN implementing partners to support the informatics components through two modules:

  • GAIHN Healthcare-associated Infections (GAIHN-HAI)
    GAIHN-HAI engages public health experts to build capacity to detect, prevent and respond to infectious disease threats in a wide range of healthcare settings.
  • GAIHN Antimicrobial Resistance (GAIHN-AR)
    GAIHN-AR seeks to prevent and contain the spread of highly resistant organisms in healthcare systems to improve patient safety, reduce the burden of AR and contain the spread of rare and novel AR before the pathogen becomes endemic.

GAIHN-HAI Point Prevalence Survey Project

Healthcare-associated infections (HAI) are a significant patient safety issue around the world. The ability to describe the burden of HAIs at a healthcare facility provides data for effective infection prevention and control interventions and improves patient safety.

The GAIHN-HAI Point Prevalence Survey (PPS) Project is a collaborative effort between APHL, CDC’s GAIHN-HAI team, Deloitte and GAIHN-HAI implementing partners that provides a sustainable informatics tool to measure HAI burden. The PPS data collection application—deployed on the AIMS platform—guides users through the PPS methodology and streamlines the process of manual data collection and analysis.

CDC, GAIHN-HAI hospital facilities and implementing partners in the Philippines and Indonesia currently utilize the data collection application, with additional GAIHN-HAI network countries expected to be onboarded.

Learn more about the GAIHN-HAI PPS project and data collection application.

GAIHN Reporting System

We support GAIHN-AR informatics solutions within the GAIHN reporting system, a surveillance software and analytics platform. The data system assists implementing partners and hospital personnel to submit prevention, response and laboratory indicator data produced by a CDC-sponsored infection prevention and control program. The raw qualitative and quantitative data comes from individual hospital facilities and laboratories and is analyzed and converted to indicator-level data within the GAIHN reporting system with supportive visualization and dashboards. The solution is centrally deployed in the cloud and hosted by BAO systems. The analytics platform was also instituted to support more advanced data analysis and ingestion to meet the needs of the facilities and country programs that are members of the GAIHN-AR network.