Impact of the inpatient infectious disease consultations at a tertiary care university hospital
Abstract
BACKGROUND: The role of the infectious disease specialist continues to evolve. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the value of infectious disease consultation in the inpatient setting.
METHODS: This is a prospective cohort study that took place in a tertiary care university hospital. During the period from April to June 2016, 224 cases of patients receiving antibiotics in the hospital with the request of an infectious diseases’ consultation, were evaluated. The following variables were assessed: the referring department, purpose of the consultation, the antibiotic used before requesting the infectious diseases consultation, the antibiotic modifications after the infectious disease’s visit, whenever the antibiotic usage was switched to a mono or bi-therapy.
RESULTS: The most frequent requesting departments were Oncology (23.2%) and Urology (21.4%). The purpose of the consultations was diagnosis (29%), therapy (41%), both diagnosis and therapy (21%), and prophylaxis (9%). An infectious diseases consultation was given at a rate of 4.9 consultations per 100 hospitalized patients. Antibiotic was discontinued in 14.7% of cases. There was no indication for the antibiotic treatment in 11.6% of cases. Modifying the antibiotic therapy was done in 25.4% of cases. Adjusting the antibiotic dosage was done in only one case. Carbapenem antibiotics were discontinued in 31.6 % of cases and Quinolones discontinuation accounted for 22.7% of cases.
CONCLUSION: Infectious disease consults contributed to the optimization of the diagnostic and therapeutic approaches for suspected or confirmed infections in hospitalized patients.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access and Benefits of Publishing Open Access).
This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.
Articles are published Under License of Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License ©
Copyright policies & self-archiving
This is our Copyright Policy. We are a RoMEO green journal.
| Author's Pre-print: |  author can archive pre-print (ie pre-refereeing) |
| Author's Post-print: | author can archive post-print (ie final draft post-refereeing) |
| Publisher's Version/PDF: | author can archive publisher's version/PDF |
