General Info

Francesca J. Torriani, MD, is a Professor of Clinical Medicine in the Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Dr. Torriani received her medical degree in 1985 from the University Medical School in Lausanne, Switzerland. In 1995, Dr. Torriani joined UC San Diego Health after completing a fellowship in infectious diseases.She is fluent in five languages: Italian, French, German, Spanish and English.She sees patients in the Owen Clinic and the infectious diseases clinic. She also cares for people during hospital stays.Dr. Torriani is the medical director of the UC San Diego Infection Prevention and Clinical Epidemiology and the tuberculosis control units at UC San Diego Health.In collaboration with Atlas Public Health, she has been instrumental in creating an extensive electronic microbiology surveillance and pharmacy utilization program called Guardian that allows for internal data mining, surveillance, unit specific antibiogram production, and external reporting of contagious infections to San Diego Public Health and to the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) of Healthcare Associated Infections (HAI).Since 2010, Dr. Torriani has served on the Metrics Group for CA HAI Reporting, an independent group of experts discussing best standards and methods for HAI reporting in California.Dr. Torriani has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals including The Journal of Infectious Diseases, AIDS, Journal of Clinical Microbiology, and Clinical Infectious Diseases and New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).In June 2013, Dr. Torriani was awarded a 1.35 million dollar 3 year grant from the UC Office of the President to prevent surgical site infections (SSI). The goal of this grant is to standardize and implement the education of patients, CHG bathing and wound care after orthopedic, neurosurgical and colorectal surgeries at all 5 UC academic Medical Centers. UC San Diego Health LinksFor more information, see http://health.ucsd.edu/specialties/Pages/id.aspx.