ICU Utilization After Implementation of Minor Severe Pneumonia Criteria in Real-Time Electronic Clinical Decision Support.

OBJECTIVES: To determine if the implementation of automated clinical decision support (CDS) with embedded minor severe community-acquired pneumonia (sCAP) criteria was associated with improved ICU utilization among emergency department (ED) patients with pneumonia who did not require vasopressors or positive pressure ventilation at admission. DESIGN: Planned secondary analysis of a stepped-wedge, cluster-controlled CDS implementation trial. SETTING: Sixteen hospitals in six geographic clusters from Intermountain Health; a large, integrated, nonprofit health system in Utah and Idaho. PATIENTS: Adults admitted to the hospital from the ED with pneumonia identified by: 1) discharge International Classification of Diseases , 10th Revision codes for pneumonia or sepsis/respiratory failure and 2) ED chest imaging consistent with pneumonia, who did not require vasopressors or positive pressure ventilation at admission. INTERVENTIONS: After implementation, patients were exposed to automated, open-loop, comprehensive CDS that aided disposition decision (ward vs. ICU), based on objective severity scores (sCAP). MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: The analysis included 2747 patients, 1814 before and 933 after implementation. The median age was 71, median Elixhauser index was 17, 48% were female, and 95% were Caucasian. A mixed-effects regression model with cluster as the random effect estimated that implementation of CDS utilizing sCAP increased 30-day ICU-free days by 1.04 days (95% CI, 0.48-1.59; p < 0.001). Among secondary outcomes, the odds of being admitted to the ward, transferring to the ICU within 72 hours, and receiving a critical therapy decreased by 57% (odds ratio [OR], 0.43; 95% CI, 0.26-0.68; p < 0.001) post-implementation; mortality within 72 hours of admission was unchanged (OR, 1.08; 95% CI, 0.56-2.01; p = 0.82) while 30-day all-cause mortality was lower post-implementation (OR, 0.71; 95% CI, 0.52-0.96; p = 0.03). CONCLUSIONS: Implementation of electronic CDS using minor sCAP criteria to guide disposition of patients with pneumonia from the ED was associated with safe reduction in ICU utilization.

A Pragmatic, Stepped-Wedge, Cluster-controlled Clinical Trial of Real-Time Pneumonia Clinical Decision Support.

Rationale: Care of emergency department (ED) patients with pneumonia can be challenging. Clinical decision support may decrease unnecessary variation and improve care. Objectives: To report patient outcomes and processes of care after deployment of electronic pneumonia clinical decision support (ePNa): a comprehensive, open loop, real-time clinical decision support embedded within the electronic health record. Methods: We conducted a pragmatic, stepped-wedge, cluster-controlled trial with deployment at 2-month intervals in 16 community hospitals. ePNa extracts real-time and historical data to guide diagnosis, risk stratification, microbiological studies, site of care, and antibiotic therapy. We included all adult ED patients with pneumonia over the course of 3 years identified by International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision discharge coding confirmed by chest imaging. Measurements and Main Results: The median age of the 6,848 patients was 67 years (interquartile range, 50-79), and 48% were female; 64.8% were hospital admitted. Unadjusted mortality was 8.6% before and 4.8% after deployment. A mixed effects logistic regression model adjusting for severity of illness with hospital cluster as the random effect showed an adjusted odds ratio of 0.62 (0.49-0.79; P < 0.001) for 30-day all-cause mortality after deployment. Lower mortality was consistent across hospital clusters. ePNa-concordant antibiotic prescribing increased from 83.5% to 90.2% (P < 0.001). The mean time from ED admission to first antibiotic was 159.4 (156.9-161.9) minutes at baseline and 150.9 (144.1-157.8) minutes after deployment (P < 0.001). Outpatient disposition from the ED increased from 29.2% to 46.9%, whereas 7-day secondary hospital admission was unchanged (5.2% vs. 6.1%). ePNa was used by ED clinicians in 67% of eligible patients. Conclusions: ePNa deployment was associated with improved processes of care and lower mortality. Clinical trial registered with www.clinicaltrials.gov (NCT03358342).

Emergency Department Crowding Is Associated With Delayed Antibiotics for Sepsis.

STUDY OBJECTIVE: Barriers to early antibiotic administration for sepsis remain poorly understood. We investigated the association between emergency department (ED) crowding and door-to-antibiotic time in ED sepsis. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of ED sepsis patients presenting to 2 community hospitals, a regional referral hospital, and a tertiary teaching hospital. The primary exposure was ED occupancy rate, defined as the ratio of registered ED patients to licensed ED beds. We defined ED overcrowding as an ED occupancy rate greater than or equal to 1. We used multivariable regression to measure the adjusted association between ED crowding and door-to-antibiotic time (elapsed time from ED arrival to first antibiotic initiation). Using Markov multistate models, we also investigated the association between ED crowding and pre-antibiotic care processes. RESULTS: Among 3,572 eligible sepsis patients, 70% arrived when the ED occupancy rate was greater than or equal to 0.5 and 14% arrived to an overcrowded ED. Median door-to-antibiotic time was 158 minutes (interquartile range 109 to 216 minutes). When the ED was overcrowded, 46% of patients received antibiotics within 3 hours of ED arrival compared with 63% when it was not (difference 14.4%; 95% confidence interval 9.7% to 19.2%). After adjustment, each 10% increase in ED occupancy rate was associated with a 4.0-minute increase (95% confidence interval 2.8 to 5.2 minutes) in door-to-antibiotic time and a decrease in the odds of antibiotic initiation within 3 hours (odds ratio 0.90; 95% confidence interval 0.88 to 0.93). Increasing ED crowding was associated with slower initial patient assessment but not further delays after the initial assessment. CONCLUSION: ED crowding was associated with increased sepsis antibiotic delay. Hospitals must devise strategies to optimize sepsis antibiotic administration during periods of ED crowding.

Validation of the Infectious Disease Society of America/American Thoracic Society 2007 guidelines for severe community-acquired pneumonia.

OBJECTIVES: Validate the Infectious Disease Society of America/American Thoracic Society 2007 (IDSA/ATS 2007) criteria for predicting severe community-acquired pneumonia (SCAP) and evaluate a health-services definition for SCAP. DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study. SETTING: LDS Hospital, an academic tertiary care facility in the western United States. PATIENTS: Consecutive patients with International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Edition, codes and chest radiographs consistent with community-acquired pneumonia from 1996 to 2006 seen at LDS Hospital. INTERVENTIONS: None. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: We utilized the electronic medical record to examine intensive care unit admission, intensive therapies received, and predictors of severity, as well as 30-day mortality. We also developed logistic regression models of mortality and disease severity. We calculated the IDSA/ATS 2007 criteria as well as three other pneumonia severity scores. We defined SCAP as receipt of intensive therapy in the intensive care unit. In 2413 episodes of pneumonia, 1540 were admitted to the hospital, while 379 were admitted to the intensive care unit. Overall 30-day mortality was 3.7% but was 16% among intensive care patients. The IDSA/ATS 2007 minor criteria predicted SCAP with an area under the curve of 0.88 (95% confidence interval 0.85-0.90), which improved to 0.90 (95% confidence interval 0.88-0.92) with weighting. Competing models had area under the curve of 0.76 to 0.83. Using four rather than three minor criteria improved the positive predictive value from 54% to 81%, with a stable negative predictive value of 94% to 92%. CONCLUSIONS: The IDSA/ATS 2007 criteria predicted pneumonia severity better than other models. Using four rather than three minor criteria may be a superior cutoff, although this will depend on institutional characteristics.

Pneumococcal urinary antigen test use in diagnosis and treatment of pneumonia in seven Utah hospitals.

The pneumocococcal urine antigen test increases specific microbiological diagnosis over conventional culture methods in pneumonia patients. Data are limited regarding its yield and effect on antibiotic prescribing among patients with community-onset pneumonia in clinical practice. We performed a secondary analysis of 2837 emergency department patients admitted to seven Utah hospitals over 2 years with international diagnostic codes version 9 codes and radiographic evidence of pneumonia. Mean age was 64.2 years, 47.2% were male and all-cause 30-day mortality was 9.6%. Urinary antigen testing was performed in 1110 (39%) patients yielding 134 (12%) positives. Intensive care unit patients were more likely to undergo testing, and have a positive result (15% versus 8.8% for ward patients; p<0.01). Patients with risk factors for healthcare-associated pneumonia had fewer urinary antigen tests performed, but 8.4% were positive. Physicians changed to targeted antibiotic therapy in 20 (15%) patients, de-escalated antibiotic therapy in 76 patients (57%). In 38 (28%) patients, antibiotics were not changed. Only one patient changed to targeted therapy suffered clinical relapse. Length of stay and mortality were lower in patients receiving targeted therapy. Pneumococcal urinary antigen testing is an inexpensive, noninvasive test that favourably influenced antibiotic prescribing in a "real world", multi-hospital observational study.

A modified sequential organ failure assessment score for critical care triage.

OBJECTIVE: The Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score has been recommended for triage during a mass influx of critically ill patients, but it requires laboratory measurement of 4 parameters, which may be impractical with constrained resources. We hypothesized that a modified SOFA (MSOFA) score that requires only 1 laboratory measurement would predict patient outcome as effectively as the SOFA score. METHODS: After a retrospective derivation in a prospective observational study in a 24-bed medical, surgical, and trauma intensive care unit, we determined serial SOFA and MSOFA scores on all patients admitted during the 2008 calendar year and compared the ability to predict mortality and the need for mechanical ventilation. RESULTS: A total of 1770 patients (56% male patients) with a 30-day mortality of 10.5% were included in the study. Day 1 SOFA and MSOFA scores performed equally well at predicting mortality with an area under the receiver operating curve (AUC) of 0.83 (95% confidence interval 0.81-.85) and 0.84 (95% confidence interval 0.82-.85), respectively (P = .33 for comparison). Day 3 SOFA and MSOFA predicted mortality for the 828 patients remaining in the intensive care unit with an AUC of 0.78 and 0.79, respectively. Day 5 scores performed less well at predicting mortality. Day 1 SOFA and MSOFA predicted the need for mechanical ventilation on day 3, with an AUC of 0.83 and 0.82, respectively. Mortality for the highest category of SOFA and MSOFA score (>11 points) was 53% and 58%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The MSOFA predicts mortality as well as the SOFA and is easier to implement in resource-constrained settings, but using either score as a triage tool would exclude many patients who would otherwise survive.