Francesca Torriani, MD

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. She sees patients in the Owen Clinic and the infectious diseases clinic. She also cares for people during hospital stays.

Dr. Torriani is 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 was 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.

Dr. Torriani joined UC San Diego Health in 1995 after completing a fellowship in infectious diseases. Dr. Torriani earned her medical degree from the University Medical School in Lausanne, Switzerland.

She is fluent in five languages: Italian, French, German, Spanish and English.

UC San Diego Health Links
For more information, see Infectious Disease.