Dr. Penn serves as Medical Director for the Department of Healthcare Epidemiology at Methodist Hospital.

Dr. Penn also provides infection control services for certain entities within the Nebraska Methodist Health System. He has served Methodist in these ways since 1981. Dr. Penn also served as Medical Director of the Department of Epidemiology at Childrens' Hospital from 1981 to 1993, and at Methodist-Richard Young Hospital from 1988 to 2003. Dr. Penn is a Fellow of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America.

Healthcare epidemiology involves strategies to protect patients from acquiring infections while in the hospital.

In recent years the management of multidrug-resistant organisms in the healthcare setting has become a significant challenge.

Antimicrobial stewardship focuses on limiting adverse drug reactions and the emergence of multidrug-resistant organisms.

ID Specialists who oversee infection-control and antibiotic stewardship are uniquely positioned to help hospitals focus on quality of care while also reducing unnecessary costs and number of hospital stays.

The average payment in 2006 for hospitalization where a patient acquired an infection while in the hospital was $53,915; with no infection, the average payment was $8,311.  This was published in a 2009 Report of the State of Pennsylvania, which concluded that by simply getting rid of preventable infections, its hospitals could lower expenses by nearly $1 billion. The Report was based on reported 2006 hospital infection rates. Wall Street Journal 10/8/2009 (p.1).

A 2003 study found that for each nosocomial infection the excess direct hospital cost was an average of $15,275 with collateral costs estimated at $38,600. [Roberts RR, Scott RD II, Cordell R, et al. The use of economic modeling to determine the hospital costs associated with nosocomial infections. Clin Infect Dis 2003; 36:1424-32.]