Hospital Medicine News

LOS ANGELES — A computer prompt recommending appropriate antibiotic use based on a patient’s level of risk for a resistant infection cut the use of extended-spectrum antibiotics for abdominal infections by around one-third in a large trial.

LOS ANGELES — One-third of patients with a carbapenemase-producing organism died, according to a study conducted at nearly a dozen New York hospitals.

An electronic health record order set that preselected shorter antibiotic courses for acute otitis media cut antibiotic use for pediatric ear infections in half, according to findings presented at IDWeek.

The proportion of children dying from sepsis is lower than it was 20 years ago, but Black children are still at a significantly higher risk than white children, according to a study presented at IDWeek.

Upgrading pediatric readiness in EDs would reduce the deaths of pediatric patients by almost half, according to study results published in Health Affairs.

Cockroaches contributed to an outbreak of multidrug-resistant Enterobacter cloacae in an ICU over the course of 20 months, according to a study that linked outbreak strains to strains found in the insects.

Harmful diagnostic errors may occur in one in 14 hospital patients, the findings of a retrospective cohort study published in BMJ Quality & Safety suggested.

Insufficient infection prevention staffing can lead to higher rates of health care-associated infection, according to researchers who evaluated an online calculator that could help facilities meet staffing requirements.

As older Americans continue to shoulder much of the COVID-19 burden, new data show that most went without a vaccine last winter and that those who got sick rarely received antivirals.

Children with health care-associated respiratory syncytial virus were more likely to need respiratory support, compared with children with community-associated RSV, according to a recent study.