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Intervention helped boost compliance with new CAP guidelines
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Using quality improvement methods to develop interventions can boost compliance with the recently recommended guidelines for antibiotic therapy in children with community-acquired pneumonia, according to study results published online.
Lilliam Ambroggio, PhD, MPH, of the division of hospital medicine, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, and colleagues launched a campaign to increase appropriate antibiotic therapy at the hospital, as per the recently recommended Pediatric Infectious Disease Society/Infectious Disease Society of America guidelines on community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). The quality improvement interventions focused on several key areas, including clinician education about the guidelines, an index card that reinforced the guidelines, and subsequent changes to the electronic medical record system.
“Appropriate first-line antibiotic prescribing for children admitted with the diagnosis of CAP increased in the emergency department from a median baseline of 0% to 100% and on the hospital medicine resident teams from 30% to 100% within 6 months of introducing the guidelines,” the study researchers wrote.
The results have been sustained for 3 months, but they said the data were sustained during off-peak respiratory season, when not as many children present with CAP, which may limit their findings.
Ambroggio told Infectious Diseases in Children that they continued to track antibiotic therapy after manuscript submission and were able to maintain near perfect adherence to guideline-recommended first-line therapy throughout the peak respiratory season.
“This is likely due to higher reliability interventions, such as creating a template that clinicians can use for patients diagnosed with pneumonia that defaults to guideline-recommended management of CAP in the electronic medical record system,” she said.
Lilliam Ambroggio, PhD, MPH, can be reached at the Division of Hospital Medicine, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, 3333 Burnet Ave., ML 9016, Cincinnati, OH 45229; email: lilliam.ambroggio@cchmc.org.
Disclosure: Ambroggio reports no relevant financial disclosures.
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