Antibiotic Stewardship Implementation and Antibiotic Use at Hospitals With and Without On-site Infectious Disease Specialists.

Livorsi DJ, Nair R, Lund BC, Alexander B, Beck BF, Goto M, Ohl M, Vaughan-Sarrazin MS, Goetz MB, Perencevich EN. Antibiotic Stewardship Implementation and Antibiotic Use at Hospitals With and Without On-site Infectious Disease Specialists. Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. 2021 May 18; 72(10):1810-1817.

Related HSR&D Project(s)

• CDA 16-204 – Improving antimicrobial use at hospitals that lack infectious disease specialists

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Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Many US hospitals lack infectious disease (ID) specialists, which may hinder antibiotic stewardship efforts. We sought to compare patient-level antibiotic exposure at Veterans Health Administration (VHA) hospitals with and without an on-site ID specialist, defined as an ID physician and/or ID pharmacist. METHODS: This retrospective VHA cohort included all acute-care patient admissions during 2016. A mandatory survey was used to identify hospitals'' antibiotic stewardship processes and their access to an on-site ID specialist. Antibiotic use was quantified as days of therapy per days present and categorized based on National Healthcare Safety Network definitions. A negative binomial regression model with risk adjustment was used to determine the association between presence of an on-site ID specialist and antibiotic use at the level of patient admissions. RESULTS: Eighteen of 122 (14.8%) hospitals lacked an on-site ID specialist; there were 525 451 (95.8%) admissions at ID hospitals and 23 007 (4.2%) at non-ID sites. In the adjusted analysis, presence of an ID specialist was associated with lower total inpatient antibacterial use (odds ratio, 0.92; 95% confidence interval, .85-.99). Presence of an ID specialist was also associated with lower use of broad-spectrum antibacterials (0.61; .54-.70) and higher narrow-spectrum ß-lactam use (1.43; 1.22-1.67). Total antibacterial exposure (inpatient plus postdischarge) was lower among patients at ID versus non-ID sites (0.92; .86-.99). CONCLUSIONS: Patients at hospitals with an ID specialist received antibiotics in a way more consistent with stewardship principles. The presence of an ID specialist may be important to effective antibiotic stewardship.