The Clinical Practice Innovation Award will be awarded to members who devote the majority of their time to patient care and who have significantly advanced the clinical practice of infectious diseases within the last five years. This may be accomplished through innovation in clinical practice design or management, or advocacy on the behalf of IDSA that fosters change to better recognize the value of infectious diseases practice.
2021 Winners:
Erin K. McCreary, PharmD, BCPS, BCIDP, a skilled communicator committed to enhancing systems to improve patient outcomes, is the recipient of a 2021 Clinical Practice Innovation Award from IDSA. This award recognizes members who devote the majority of their time to patient care and who have significantly advanced the clinical practice of infectious diseases within the last 5 years through innovation in clinical practice design or management, or advocacy on behalf of IDSA that fosters change to better recognize the value of infectious diseases practice.
Through her adept use of different media platforms, Dr. McCreary shares cutting-edge information about ID therapeutics with speed and expertise. As the executive producer and host of Breakpoints, the Society of Infectious Diseases Pharmacists (SIDP) podcast, Dr. McCreary has grown the program’s reach to nearly 90,000 streams reaching 52 countries on six continents. On Twitter, as an active and verified user, her engaging educational threads that break down novel evidence have been widely followed and shared.
At the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Infectious Disease Connect Inc., where she serves as the director of stewardship innovation, Dr. McCreary leads the development of evidence-based, novel therapeutic strategies. By designing a therapeutic interchange policy that allowed all patients to be treated in the context of a clinical trial, she has pioneered a system of 59 centers that have treated over 3,000 patients with COVID-19 monoclonal antibodies. She also serves as the lead pharmacist investigator for the global REMAP-CAP trial and worked to embed the trial into UPMC’s electronic health record so patients in hospital, community and rural sites all had equal opportunity to enroll.
An invited speaker and contributor to multiple international conferences, Dr. McCreary currently serves on the SIDP Board of Directors. IDSA is delighted to recognize her with a 2021 Clinical Practice Innovation Award for her tireless efforts to share her ID knowledge and expertise through multiple channels.
Vera Luther, MD, FIDSA, who has been instrumental in advancing IDSA’s antimicrobial stewardship curriculum, is the recipient of a 2021 Clinical Practice Innovation Award from IDSA. This award recognizes members who devote the majority of their time to patient care and who have significantly advanced the clinical practice of infectious diseases within the last 5 years through innovation in clinical practice design or management, or advocacy on behalf of IDSA that fosters change to better recognize the value of infectious diseases practice.
From design to implementation, Dr. Luther has worked with IDSA staff and led the society’s Antimicrobial Stewardship Curriculum Work Group to create two successful offerings, the Core AS Curriculum and the Advanced AS Curriculum, both available through the IDSA Academy. The core program has been incorporated into 78 fellowship programs and been completed by 311 fellows. More than 800 students at medical schools have also completed it. The advanced curriculum recently finished a promising pilot year, with 223 participants from 28 institutions.
Dr. Luther is a professor of medicine in the Department of Internal Medicine’s Section of Infectious Diseases at Wake Forest School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where she also serves as director of the ID fellowship program. In addition to her leadership in the area of stewardship, she has also worked to improve patient care through trainee education, engaging learners so they see the value of the ID physician and recruiting the best and brightest to the field.
An active member of the society’s ID Training Program Directors’ Committee and the Medical Education Community of Practice, Dr. Luther is chair of the Mentoring Working Group, leading projects that focus on preparing IDSA members for promotion and career advancement. Under her leadership, the group created a highly successful mentoring program that pairs senior ID medical educators with junior faculty for career coaching. For efforts like these and her work to bring high-quality, evidence-based stewardship teaching materials to programs around the country, IDSA is delighted to recognize Dr. Luther with a 2021 Clinical Practice Innovation Award.
Past Clinical Practice Innovation Award Winners
| 2020 | Raghavendra Tirupathi, M.D. |
| 2019 | No Award Recipient |
| 2018 | Javeed Siddiqui, MD, MPH |
| 2017 | Kavita P. Bhavan, MD, MHS, FIDSA |