We described antibiotic use among inpatients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Most COVID-19 inpatients received antibiotic therapy. We also described hospital-wide antibiotic use during 2020 compared with 2019, stratified by hospital COVID-19 burden. While total antibiotic use decreased between years, certain antibiotic use increased with higher COVID-19 burden.

The disruptions of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic impacted the delivery and utilization of healthcare services with potential long‐term implications for population health and the hospital workforce. Using electronic health record data from over 700 US acute care hospitals, we documented changes in admissions to hospital service areas (inpatient, observation, emergency room [ER], and same‐day surgery) during 2019−2020 and examined whether surges of COVID‐19 hospitalizations corresponded with increased inpatient disease severity and death rate. We found that in 2020, hospitalizations declined by 50% in April, with greatest declines occurring in same‐day surgery (−73%). The youngest patients (0−17) experienced largest declines in ER, observation, and same‐day surgery admissions; inpatient admissions declined the most among the oldest patients (65+). Infectious disease admissions increased by 52%. The monthly measures of inpatient case mix index, length of stay, and non‐COVID death rate were higher in all months in 2020 compared with respective months in 2019.

We described bacterial/fungal co-infections and antibiotic resistant infections among inpatients diagnosed with COVID-19 and compared findings with inpatients diagnosed with influenza-like-illness. Less than 10% of COVID-19 inpatients had bacterial/fungal co-infection. Longer lengths of stay, critical care stay, and mechanical ventilation contribute to increased incidence of hospital-onset infections among COVID-19 inpatients.

Objectives: The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic caused substantial changes to healthcare delivery and antibiotic prescribing beginning in March 2020. To assess pandemic impact on Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) rates, we described patients and trends in facility-level incidence, testing rates, and percent positivity during 2019–2020 in a large cohort of US hospitals. Methods: We estimated and compared rates of community-onset CDI (CO-CDI) per 10,000 discharges, hospital-onset CDI (HO-CDI) per 10,000 patient days, and C. difficile testing rates per 10,000 discharges in 2019 and 2020. We calculated percent positivity as the number of inpatients diagnosed with CDI over the total number of discharges with a test for C. difficile. We used an interrupted time series (ITS) design with negative binomial and logistic regression models to describe level and trend changes in rates and percent positivity before and after March 2020. Results: In pairwise comparisons, overall CO-CDI rates decreased from 20.0 to 15.8 between 2019 and 2020 (P < .0001). HO-CDI rates did not change. Using ITS, we detected decreasing monthly trends in CO-CDI (−1% per month, P = .0036) and HO-CDI incidence (−1% per month, P < .0001) during the baseline period, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic declaration. We detected no change in monthly trends for CO-CDI or HO-CDI incidence or percent positivity after March 2020 compared with the baseline period. Conclusions: While there was a slight downward trajectory in CDI trends prior to March 2020, no significant change in CDI trends occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic despite changes in infection control practices, antibiotic use, and healthcare delivery.

We compared methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bloodstream infections (BSIs) captured by culture-based surveillance and MRSA septicemia hospitalizations captured by administrative coding using statewide hospital discharge data in Connecticut from 2010 to 2018. Observed discrepancies between identification methods suggest administrative coding is inappropriate for assessing trends in MRSA BSIs.