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ID specialists lowered mortality risk among hospitalized patients
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Receiving care from an infectious disease specialist significantly lowered the risk of death in hospitalized patients with a severe infection, according to study results published in Clinical Infectious Diseases.
These patients had a slightly longer length of stay compared with patients without ID intervention but a significantly shorter length of stay in the ICU, the findings suggest.
“Infectious diseases are the second leading cause of death worldwide,” Steven K. Schmitt, MD, FIDSA, an ID specialist at the Cleveland Clinic, said in a press release. “In an age where health care-acquired infections are linked to payment penalties and bundled payments leave little room for error, the impact of ID physicians is more critical than ever in providing high-quality care. As ‘detectives’ of the medical world, ID specialists have additional years of training and possess the expertise to quickly identify and treat potentially life-threatening infections.”
Schmitt and colleagues used data from Medicare to identify patients who were hospitalized from 2008 to 2009 and had at least one of the following infections: bacteremia, Clostridium difficile, central line-associated bloodstream infections, bacterial endocarditis, HIV/opportunistic infections, meningitis, osteomyelitis, prosthetic joint infections, septic arthritis, septic shock and vascular device infections.
During this time frame, there were 101,991 patients who had interventions by ID specialists and 170,336 patients who did not.
The cohort that had ID intervention had lower mortality (OR=0.87; 95% CI, 0.83-0.91) and fewer readmissions (OR=0.96; 95% CI, 0.93-0.99) compared with the cohort without ID intervention. The length of stay was 1.3% longer for patients who had ID intervention, but the ICU length of stay was 3.7% shorter. Patients who received ID intervention early, within 2 days of admission, also had lower 30-day mortality, 30-day readmission, length of stay and Medicare charges compared with patients who received ID intervention later.
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
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