To evaluate whether rates of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) changed during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in malignant hematology and stem cell transplant patients.

A retrospective, cohort study.

The study included malignant hematology and stem cell transplant patients admitted between March 1, 2019, through July 31, 2019, and March 1, 2020, through July 31, 2020.

Rates of catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs), central-line–associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs), central-line–associated mucosal barrier injury infections (CLAMBIs), and Clostridioides difficile infections (CDIs) during the pandemic were compared to those in a control cohort. Secondary outcomes included the rate of non–COVID-19 respiratory viruses.

The rate of CAUTIs per 1,000 hospital days was 0.435 before the pandemic and 0.532 during the pandemic (incidence rate ratio [IRR], 1.224; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.0314–47.72; P = .899). The rate of CLABSIs was 0.435 before the pandemic and 1.064 during the pandemic (IRR, 2.447; 95% CI, 0.186–72.18; P = .516). The rate of CLAMBIs was 2.61 before the pandemic and 1.064 during the pandemic (IRR 0.408, 95% CI 0.057–1.927; P = .284). The rate of CDIs was 2.61 before the pandemic and 1.579 during the pandemic (IRR, 0.612; 95% CI, 0.125–2.457; P = .512). Non–COVID-19 respiratory virus cases decreased significantly from 12 (30.8%) to 2 cases (8.3%) (P = 0.014).

There was no significant difference in HAIs among inpatient malignant hematology and stem cell transplant patients during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to those of a control cohort. Rates of infection were low among both cohorts. Rates of community-acquired respiratory viruses decreased significantly during the pandemic among this population.

Outpatient antimicrobial therapy (OPAT) is managed by a variety of teams, but primarily through an infectious disease clinic. At our medical center, OPAT monitoring is performed telephonically by pharmacists through a collaborative practice agreement under the supervision of an infectious disease physician. The effect of telephonic monitoring of OPAT by pharmacists on patient outcomes is unknown.

This retrospective cohort study was conducted between July 2017 and July 2018 at a 350-bed academic medical center and included adult patients discharged home on IV antibiotics or oral linezolid. The experimental group comprised patients discharged with a consultation for the OPAT management program, whereas the control group comprised patients discharged home without a consultation. The primary outcome was 30-day readmission.

In total, 399 patients were included: 243 patients in the OPAT management program group and 156 patients in the control group. The 30-day readmission rates were similar in each cohort (20% vs 19%; P = .8193); however, the 30-day readmission rates were lower in the OPAT management program for patients discharged on vancomycin (19.4% vs 39.1%; P = .004).

We did not find a difference in 30-day readmissions between patients receiving pharmacy-driven OPAT management services and those who did not. Patients receiving vancomycin via OPAT had lower 30-day readmissions when included in the pharmacist-driven OPAT management program. Institutions with limited resources may consider reserving OPAT management services for patients receiving antimicrobials that require pharmacokinetic dosing and/or close monitoring.

To reduce inappropriate antibiotic prescribing for acute respiratory infections (ARIs) by employing peer comparison with behavioral feedback in the emergency department (ED).

A controlled before-and-after study.

The study was conducted in 5 adult EDs at teaching and community hospitals in a health system.

Adults presenting to the ED with a respiratory condition diagnosis code. Hospitalized patients and those with a diagnosis code for a non-respiratory condition for which antibiotics are or may be warranted were excluded.

After a baseline period from January 2016 to March 2018, 3 EDs implemented a feedback intervention with peer comparison between April 2018 and December 2019 for attending physicians. Also, 2 EDs in the health system served as controls. Using interrupted time series analysis, the inappropriate ARI prescribing rate was calculated as the proportion of antibiotic-inappropriate ARI encounters with a prescription. Prescribing rates were also evaluated for all ARIs. Attending physicians at intervention sites received biannual e-mails with their inappropriate prescribing rate and had access to a dashboard that was updated daily showing their performance relative to their peers.

Among 28,544 ARI encounters, the inappropriate prescribing rate remained stable at the control EDs between the 2 periods (23.0% and 23.8%). At the intervention sites, the inappropriate prescribing rate decreased significantly from 22.0% to 15.2%. Between periods, the overall ARI prescribing rate was 38.1% and 40.6% in the control group and 35.9% and 30.6% in the intervention group.

Behavioral feedback with peer comparison can be implemented effectively in the ED to reduce inappropriate prescribing for ARIs.

To explore older adults’ and caregivers’ knowledge and perceptions of guidelines for appropriate antibiotics use for bacteria in the urine.

Semi-structured qualitative interviews.

Infectious disease clinics, community senior living facilities, memory care clinics, and general public.

Patients 65 years or older diagnosed with a urinary tract infection (UTI) in the past two years, or caregivers of such patients.

We conducted interviews between March and July 2023. We developed an interview guide based on the COM-B (capability, opportunity, motivation-behavior) behavior change framework. We thematically analyzed written transcripts of audio-recorded interviews using inductive and deductive coding techniques.

Thirty participants (21 patients, 9 caregivers) enrolled. Most participants understood UTI symptoms such as pain during urination and frequent urination. However, communication with multiple clinicians, misinformation, and unclear symptoms that overlapped with other health issues clouded their understanding of asymptomatic bacteriuria (ASB) and UTIs. Some participants worried that clinicians would be dismissive of symptoms if they suggested a diagnosis of ASB without prescribing antibiotics. Many participants felt that the benefits of taking antibiotics for ASB outweighed harms, though some mentioned fears of personal antibiotic resistance if taking unnecessary antibiotics. No participants mentioned the public health impact of potential antibiotic resistance. Most participants trusted information from clinicians over brochures or websites but wanted to review information after clinical conversations.

Clinician-focused interventions to reduce antibiotic use for ASB should also address patient concerns during clinical visits, and provide standardized high-quality educational materials at the end of the visit.

The intensity of an antibiotic stewardship intervention to achieve clinical impact is not known. We conducted a multisite dissemination project of an intervention to reduce treatment of asymptomatic bacteriuria (ASB) and studied: (1) the association between implementation metrics and clinical outcomes and (2) the cost of implementation.

A central site facilitated a multimodality intervention to decrease unnecessary urine cultures and antibiotic treatment in patients with ASB at 4 Veterans Affairs medical centers.

The intervention consisted of a decision support aid algorithm and interactive teaching cases that provided in the moment audit and feedback on how to manage ASB. Implementation outcomes included minutes spent in intervention delivery, number of healthcare professionals reached, and number of sessions delivered. Clinical outcomes included days of antibiotic therapy (DOT), length of antibiotic therapy (LOT), and number of urine cultures ordered per 1000 bed days. Personnel reported weekly time logs.

Minutes spent in intervention delivery were inversely correlated with two clinical outcomes, DOT (R −0.3, P = .04) and LOT (R −0.3, P = .02). Number of healthcare professionals reached and number of sessions delivered were not correlated with clinical outcomes of DOT (R –0.003, P = .98, R = −0.059, P = .69) or LOT (R +0.073, P = .62, R −0.102, P = .49). Physician champions spent an average of 3.8% of effort on the intervention. The implementation cost was USD 22,299/year per site on average.

The amount of time local teams spent in delivery of an antibiotic stewardship intervention was correlated with the desired decrease in antibiotic use. Implementing this successful antibiotic stewardship intervention required minimal time.

To evaluate the impact of a diagnostic stewardship intervention on Clostridioides difficile healthcare-associated infections (HAI).

Quality improvement study.

Two urban acute care hospitals.

All inpatient stool testing for C. difficile required review and approval prior to specimen processing in the laboratory. An infection preventionist reviewed all orders daily through chart review and conversations with nursing; orders meeting clinical criteria for testing were approved, orders not meeting clinical criteria were discussed with the ordering provider. The proportion of completed tests meeting clinical criteria for testing and the primary outcome of C. difficile HAI were compared before and after the intervention.

The frequency of completed C. difficile orders not meeting criteria was lower [146 (7.5%) of 1,958] in the intervention period (January 10, 2022–October 14, 2022) than in the sampled 3-month preintervention period [26 (21.0%) of 124; P < .001]. C. difficile HAI rates were 8.80 per 10,000 patient days prior to the intervention (March 1, 2021–January 9, 2022) and 7.69 per 10,000 patient days during the intervention period (incidence rate ratio, 0.87; 95% confidence interval, 0.73–1.05; P = .13).

A stringent order-approval process reduced clinically nonindicated testing for C. difficile but did not significantly decrease HAIs.

Investigate and mitigate a cluster of Candida auris cases among incarcerated patients in a maximum-security prison hospital utilizing contact tracing, screening, whole genome sequencing, and environmental sampling and decontamination.

Outbreak investigation.

Inpatient prison hospital affiliated with an academic tertiary referral center.

Inmates of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Epidemiologic and environmental investigations were conducted including contact tracing, point prevalence surveys, and environmental sampling. Whole genome sequencing was performed on positive patient isolates.

Following a clinical case of C. auris fungemia, 344 patients underwent C. auris surveillance screening. Eight (2.3%) patients were identified with C. auris colonization. All patients were male. Our index patient was the only clinical case and death. Whole genome sequencing was performed on the nine patient isolates. All isolates were clade III (Africa) and clustered together with the largest SNP difference being 21. Environmental cultures from 7 of 61 rooms (11.5%) were positive following terminal disinfection with bleach. Sites nearest to the patient were most often positive including the hospital bed rails and bedside table. The transmission cluster was successfully mitigated within 60 days of identification.

Implementation of an aggressive surveillance and decontamination program resulted in mitigation of a C. auris transmission cluster among our incarcerated patients. This investigation provides valuable insight into C. auris transmission in the incarcerated population, which is not considered a classic high-risk population as well as the challenges faced to stop transmission in a facility that requires the use of shared patient environments.

Hong Kong experienced four epidemic waves caused by the ancestral strain of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in 2020–2021 and a large Omicron wave in 2022. Few studies have assessed antibacterial prescribing for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) inpatients throughout the pandemic.

To describe inpatient antibacterial prescribing and explore factors associated with their prescription.

Electronic health records of patients with COVID-19 admitted to public hospitals in Hong Kong from 21 January 2020 to 30 September 2022 were used to assess the prevalence and rates of inpatient antibacterial drug use (days of therapy/1,000 patient days [DOT/1,000 PD]). We used multivariable logistic regression to investigate potential associations between patients’ baseline characteristics and disease severity and prescription of an antibacterial drug during hospital admission.

Among 65,810 inpatients with COVID-19, 54.0% were prescribed antibacterial drugs (550.5 DOT/1,000 PD). Compared to waves 1–2 (46.7%; 246.9 DOT/1,000 PD), the prescriptions were lowest during wave 4 (28.0%; 246.9; odds ratio (OR): 0.39, 95% CI: 0.31–0.49) and peaked in early wave 5 (64.6%; 661.2; 0.82, 0.65–1.03). Older age (≥80 years: OR 2.66, 95% CI, 2.49–2.85; 60–79 years: 1.59, 1.51–1.69, compared with 20–59 years), more severe disease (fatal: 3.64, 3.2–4.16; critical: 2.56, 2.14–3.06, compared with severe), and COVID-19 vaccine doses (two doses: 0.74, 0.69–0.78; three doses: 0.69, 0.64–0.74; four doses: 0.52, 0.44–0.62, compared with unvaccinated) were associated with inpatient antibacterial drug use.

Antibacterial prescribing changed over time for hospitalized patients with confirmed COVID-19 and was potentially related to patients’ demographics, medical conditions, and COVID-19 vaccination status as well as healthcare capacity during epidemic waves.

Febrile neutropenia (FN) is a medical emergency with significant morbidity and mortality for oncology patients, requiring comprehensive workup and timely antibiotic administration. We evaluated concordance with locally developed FN guidelines and outcomes of cancer patients admitted to general internal medicine at an academic teaching hospital.

We conducted a retrospective observational cohort study of patients admitted between July 1, 2016, and June 30, 2017, for FN. Patients were classified as having low-risk or high-risk FN according to their malignancy and chemotherapy. Primary outcome was the proportion of patients receiving guideline-concordant antibiotics within 48 hours of admission to general internal medicine. Secondary outcomes were the proportion of patients in whom empirical antibiotics were active against pathogens isolated, rate of antibiotic-associated adverse events, and in-hospital mortality. We used logistic regression to model relationship between FN risk and guideline-concordant antibiotics.

Among 100 patients included, 34 (34%) were low-risk FN and 66 (66%) were high-risk. Proportion of guideline-concordant empirical antibiotics was significantly lower among low-risk FN patients than high-risk patients: 12 (35%) of 34 versus 47 (71%) of 66 (P = .001). Empirical antibiotics were active against 17 (94%) of 18 isolated pathogens. The mortality rate was 3%, and 16% of patients experienced antibiotic-associated adverse events. Hematological malignancy and infectious diseases–trained physician involvement were associated with guideline-concordant prescribing, with adjusted odds ratios of 3.76 (95% CI, 1.46–9.70; P = .006) and 3.71 (95% CI, 1.49–9.23; P = .005), respectively.

Guideline concordance was low compared to published reports. Factors influencing appropriate antimicrobial prescribing in patients with FN warrant further exploration.

Bloodstream infections caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) remain a major challenge in most countries worldwide.

We describe a quasi-experimental sequential intervention at Mater Dei Hospital, Malta, to reduce hyper-prevalence of healthcare-associated MRSA bacteremia (HA-MRSA-B).

The hospital initiated a hand hygiene (HH) campaign in 2008 to improve alcohol hand rub (AHR) use. In 2011, this was followed by root cause analysis (RCA) of all HA-MRSA-B cases and finally universal MRSA admission screening in 2014. Change-point analysis was used to evaluate the impact of the interventions.

The effect of the HH campaign became evident when AHR consumption reached 40 L/1000 occupied bed days (BD). RCAs identified intravascular devices as the likely risk factor in 83% of all HA-MRSA-B; specifically non-tunneled double-lumen hemodialysis catheters (36%), peripheral venous cannulas (25%), and central venous catheters (22%). Interventions to improve their management resulted in the greatest reduction of HA-MRSA-B rates. They were informed by the RCA findings and targeted behavior change through education, motivation, and system change. Universal MRSA admission screening provided the final decline in incidence. Each intervention affected HA-MRSA-B rates after a lag period of approximately 18–24 months. Overall, HA-MRSA-B incidence decreased from 1.72 cases/10000BD in 2008 to 0.18/10000BD in 2019; a reduction of almost 90%. Intravenous device interventions were also associated with a reduction of methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA) bacteremia rates.

Significant improvement in HA-MRSA-B is possible, even in highly endemic regions. It requires well-planned behavior change interventions which are compatible with local context and culture.