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Healthcare quality and safety span multiple topics across the spectrum of academic and clinical disciplines. Keeping abreast of the rapidly growing body of work can be challenging. In this series, we provide succinct summaries of selected relevant studies published in the last several months. Some articles will focus on a particular theme, while others will highlight unique publications from high-impact medical journals.
Key points
In a time-series analysis of institution-level rates of multidrug resistant organism colonisation and healthcare-associated infection, moving patients from a large hospital with mostly three-person and four-person ward-type rooms to a new hospital with exclusively single-patient rooms was associated with important changes. These included an immediate and sustained decrease in the rates of new colonisation with vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE) and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) as well as VRE infection, but no reduction in infection with MRSA or Clostridioides difficile. JAMA Intern Med. 19 August 2019.
In a multicentre, open-label, randomised controlled trial of patients diagnosed with exacerbations of chronic obstructive lung disease in the primary care setting, point-of-care testing of C-reactive protein to guide antibiotic prescribing resulted in fewer prescriptions and less patient-reported antibiotic use than the usual care group without evidence of harm. N Engl J Med. 11 July 2019.
In a multihospital, retrospective cohort study of adults hospitalised with pneumonia, the majority of patients received excess antibiotic therapy compared with guidelines, primarily at hospital discharge. Excess treatment was associated with higher rates of patient-reported adverse events. Ann Intern Med. 9 July 2019.
Introduction
Infection prevention and antimicrobial stewardship programmes are rapidly evolving.1 2 Like many patient safety initiatives, these programmes initially focused on encouraging the individual healthcare provider to follow guidelines, primarily through education, hand hygiene feedback and restricting use of higher-risk antibiotics. However, more recently there is recognition that infection prevention and antimicrobial …
Footnotes
Twitter @nate_houchens
Funding JM’s research was supported by an AHRQ grant K08HS019767 from 2010-2015 and is currently supported by AHRQ grants P30HS024385 and R01HS018334 as well as funding from the VA National Center for Patient Safety and the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control. JM’s research has recently been supported by contracts with the Health Research & Education Trust (HRET) involving the prevention of CAUTI, funded by AHRQ and the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. JM was also a recipient of the 2009–2015 National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Loan Repayment Program. JM is a salaried employee of the University of Michigan and the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System.
Competing interests JM has reported receiving honoraria from hospitals and professional societies devoted to complication prevention for lectures and teaching related to prevention and value-based purchasing policies involving catheter-associated urinary tract infection and hospital-acquired pressure ulcers. JM’s research involves development of products to improve patient safety by reducing hospital-acquired complications. Her team has a provisional patent involving one of these products that aims to reduce urinary catheter associated complications and has recently applied for a patent involving a device to reduce hospital-acquired pressure ulcers. She has no associations with any companies or manufacturers, has no ownership in a commercial entity, and receives no royalties.
Patient consent for publication Not required.
Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.