Abstract
An early iv-to-oral switch of antibiotic treatment has proven safe and cost-effective in many infectious conditions. The aim of this study is to benchmark iv-to-oral switching rates for pneumonia between hospitals.
In the PHARMO Database Network we constructed a cohort of 5566 patients admitted for pneumonia in seven hospitals in the Netherlands (2005-2010) who started with intravenous antibiotics. For each patient the time to full oral antibiotic treatment or end of antibiotic treatment was assessed, whatever came first. Kaplan Meier curves were fitted to analyse in hospital iv-to-oral switching kinetics.
The overall median time to oral treatment was 5 days and 19% of the patients did receive intravenous treatment until discharge. The percentage of patients who were switched to oral treatment per day 4 (early switch) varied between 11% and 27% (p<0.001). There was no large inter-hospital variation in patient characteristics, length of hospital stay and readmission within 30 days.
Patient characteristics and main study parameters
This benchmark provided insight in variation in iv-to-oral switch rates between hospitals and can be applied to follow-up outcome of strategies to improve timely switching discipline.
- © 2014 ERS
