Duration of corticosteroid use in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease exacerbations: improving prescribing practices on clinical teaching units with peer-to-peer teaching.

INTRODUCTION: The most recent Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease consensus recommends a 5-day course of corticosteroid (CS) therapy for acute chronic obstructive pulmonary disease exacerbations (ACOPDE). As inappropriate use of CS therapy is associated with adverse events, we implemented a peer-to-peer education intervention to improve adherence to guidelines for patients with ACOPDE admitted to a medical clinical teaching unit at a tertiary care university centre. METHODS: Our study was a before-after design study with a concurrent control of a 15 min peer-to-peer educational intervention targeting medical residents at the beginning of a 4-week rotation for 12 consecutive months. Another medical teaching unit within the same university network, but at a different site, served as a concurrent control. The primary outcome was the proportion of patients who received appropriate duration of CS therapy (5 days) for ACOPDE during the intervention period as compared with the 12-month preintervention period at the intervention and control hospitals. RESULTS: Following the intervention, there was an increase in the proportion of patients receiving appropriate duration of CS therapy (34.2% to 51.3%, p=0.02) at the intervention hospital and no significant difference at the control hospital (22.8% to 34.1%, p=0.15). This effect was maintained at the intervention hospital 3 months postintervention period. CONCLUSION: A short peer-to-peer educational intervention targeting medical residents on a clinical teaching unit improved adherence to appropriate duration of CS therapy for ACOPDE.

Reduction of inappropriate exit prescriptions for proton pump inhibitors: A before-after study using education paired with a web-based quality-improvement tool.

BACKGROUND: Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) are overprescribed despite concerns regarding associated adverse drug events. OBJECTIVE: To reduce inappropriate PPI prescriptions using hospitalization as the point of contact to effect meaningful change. DESIGN: Before-after study design. SETTING: Forty-six-bed medical clinical teaching unit in a 417-bed university teaching hospital in Montreal, Canada. PATIENTS: Four hundred sixty-four consecutively admitted patients in the preintervention control group, and 640 consecutively admitted patients in the intervention group. INTERVENTION: A monthly educational intervention paired with a Web-based quality improvement tool. MEASUREMENTS: We determined the proportion of patients admitted on PPIs, their indications, and appropriateness of use. We then compared the proportion of patients whose PPIs were discontinued at discharge before and after our intervention. RESULTS: Forty-four percent of patients were already using a PPI prior to their hospitalization. In evaluated patients, only 54% of these patients had an evidence-based indication for ongoing use. The proportion of PPIs discontinued at hospital discharge increased from 7.7% per month in the 6 months prior to intervention, to 18.5% per month postintervention (P = 0.03). CONCLUSIONS: Strategies to combat PPI overuse are needed to improve the overall quality of patient care. We significantly reduced discharge prescriptions for PPIs through the implementation of an educational initiative paired with a Web-based quality improvement tool. An active interventional strategy is likely required considering the increasingly recognized and preventable adverse events associated with PPI misuse.

Novel low-resource intervention reduces urinary catheter use and associated urinary tract infections: role of outcome measure bias?

BACKGROUND: Previous interventions targeting nosocomial urinary tract infections have reduced catheterization and infections, but they require significant resources and may be susceptible to misclassification and surveillance bias. We sought to determine the effectiveness of a novel intervention at reducing catheterization and infections while exploring the potential for bias. METHODS: We conducted a prospective study of a brief monthly in-person educational intervention focusing on appropriate urinary catheter use. RESULTS: We studied 1,335 patients (13,753 patient days) on 1 control and 1 intervention ward. After the intervention, the device utilization rate was significantly reduced, with a relative risk of 0.49 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.32-0.76; P = .001) versus 1.02 (95% CI, 0.58-1.82; P = .93) for controls. Both wards demonstrated a reduction in catheter-associated infections after intervention, with an intervention relative risk of 0.42 (95% CI, 0.16-1.08; P = .07) and 0.51 (95% CI, 0.22-1.20; P = .12) for controls. There was no change in the rate of all nosocomial urine infections, with an intervention relative risk of 0.79 (95% CI, 0.38-1.65; P = .53) and 0.89 (95% CI, 0.48-1.67; P = .72) for controls. CONCLUSION: Our study demonstrates that our novel educational intervention significantly reduces urinary catheter use in hospitalized patients. The trend towards reduced catheter-associated infections after intervention, coupled with the absence of an improvement in all nosocomial infections supports a potential role of misclassification bias. We suggest that future prospective investigations explore this phenomenon using more robust outcome measures.

Ability of nurse clinicians to predict unplanned returns to hospital within thirty days of discharge.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the ability of nurse clinician discharge flow coordinators (DFCs) to identify medical patients at risk of unplanned return to the hospital emergency department within 30 days of discharge and whether a higher predicted risk of return was correlated with preventability. DESIGN: Prospective cohort study of patients discharged from medical wards at 2 hospital sites of the McGill University Health Center between September 1, 2011, and January 1, 2012. METHODS: Univariate and multivariate analyses of factors including the ability of DFCs to predict 30-day unplanned returns to the hospital. Assessment of the preventability of returns to the hospital was performed by chart review using prespecified criteria. The ability of DFCs to predict returns was compared to the LACE criteria (length of stay, acute admission through the emergency department, comorbidities, and emergency department visits in the past 6 months). RESULTS: We found that 25.0% (95% CI, 21.3-28.5) of our patients returned to the emergency department within 30 days. The DFC predictions were found to be significant in both univariate and multivariate analysis. Patient age, sex, and length of stay were not significant predictors in univariate or multivariate analysis; 13.9% (95% CI, 8.2-19.6) of returns were preventable and a further 25.8% (95% CI, 18.1-33.5) were potentially preventable with added services in the community. There was a trend toward more preventable or potentially preventable returns with higher predicted probability of return. In contrast the LACE criteria did not have a good predictive capacity in our patient population. CONCLUSION: In a large urban center, experienced nurse clinician DFCs were able to predict 30-day emergency department returns with reasonable accuracy. They were also able to identify the returns to the hospital that were most likely to be preventable. Our data suggests that DFCs can be used to target patients identified as having an increased probability of return with interventions that may be able to reduce the burden of return to hospital.

Antibiotic self-stewardship: trainee-led structured antibiotic time-outs to improve antimicrobial use.

BACKGROUND: Antibiotic use is an important quality improvement target. Nearly 50% of antibiotic use is unnecessary or inappropriate. To combat overuse, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) proposed "time-outs" to reevaluate antibiotics. OBJECTIVE: To optimize antibiotic use through trainee-led time-outs. DESIGN: Before-after study. SETTING: Internal medicine (2 units, 46 beds) at a university hospital. PATIENTS: Inpatients (n = 679). INTERVENTION: From January 2012 until June 2013, while receiving monthly education on antimicrobial stewardship, resident physicians adjusted patients' antibiotic therapy through twice-weekly time-out audits using a structured electronic checklist. MEASUREMENTS: Antibiotic costs were standardized and compared in the year before and after the audits. Use was measured as World Health Organization defined daily doses (DDDs) per 1000 patient-days. Total antibiotic use and the use of moxifloxacin, carbapenems, antipseudomonal penicillins, and vancomycin were compared by using interrupted time series. Rates of nosocomial Clostridium difficile infection were compared by using incidence rate ratios. RESULTS: Total costs in the units decreased from $149,743CAD (January 2011 to January 2012) to $80,319 (January 2012 to January 2013), for a savings of $69,424 (46% reduction). Of the savings, $54,150 (78%) was related to carbapenems and $15,274 (22%) was due to other antibiotic classes. Adherence with the auditing process was 80%. In the time-series analyses, the only reliable and statistically significant change was a reduction in the rate of moxifloxicin use, by -1.9 DDDs per 1000 patient-days per month (95% CI, -3.8 to -0.02; P = 0.048). Rates of C. difficile infection decreased from 24.2 to 19.6 per 10,000 patient-days (incidence rate ratio, 0.8 [CI, 0.5 to 1.3]). LIMITATION: Other temporal factors may confound the findings. CONCLUSIONS: An antibiotic self-stewardship bundle to implement the CDC's suggested time-outs seems to have reduced overall costs and targeted antibiotic use. PRIMARY FUNDING SOURCE: None.

Antibiotics against Chlamydia pneumoniae and prognosis after acute myocardial infarction.

BACKGROUND: There is mounting pathologic and immunologic evidence that Chlamydia pneumoniae plays a role in the atherogenic pathway. However, very few clinical studies have supported these findings. METHODS: Using the administrative data of all patients > or =65 years of age who had an acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in Quebec between 1991 and 1995 (n = 26,195), we studied the relationship between the intake of antichlamydial antibiotics and post-AMI prognosis. Three groups were compared: patients exposed to (1) antichlamydial antibiotics, (2) sulfa-derivative antibiotics, to which C pneumoniae is not sensitive, and (3) neither of the above classes of antibiotics. Two periods of antibiotic exposure were explored: (1) during the first 3 months after AMI and (2) during the 6 months before AMI. RESULTS: Patients in the 3 exposure groups were similar except for a slightly lower proportion of men in the sulfa-derivative antibiotics group. Among all patients who were exposed during the 3 months after AMI and who survived at least 3 months, the 1-year mortality rate was similar across the 3 groups (10.1%, 11.1%, and 10.4% for the antichlamydial, sulfa-derivative, and nonexposed group, respectively) but favored the antichlamydial group at 2 years (15.9%, 23.0%, and 20.0%). In adjusted survival analysis, patients in the sulfa-derivative and nonexposed groups were slightly more likely to die than patients in the antichlamydial group (relative risk [RR], 1.38; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.04 to 1.82 and 1.29; 95% CI, 1.05 to 1.59, respectively). Among individuals treated during the 6 months before AMI, the adjusted risk of dying was similar in the sulfa-derivative and nonexposed groups compared with the antichlamydial group (RR 1.03, 95% CI 0.90 to 1.18 and 1.08, 95% CI 0.99 to 1.19, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: Exposure to antichlamydial antibiotics during the 3 months after AMI is associated with a small survival benefit, whereas exposure during the 6 months before AMI does not affect survival.