Local area community cumulative incidence (per 1,000 population) Health care personnel with positive test results for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies (%) Abbreviation: COVID-19 = coronavirus disease 2019. * Calculated as the total number of reported community COVID-19 cases within a hospital-area county or counties between the beginning of the pandemic and 7 days after the first day of health care personnel enrollment at the hospital divided by population of the county or counties x 1,000.
Healthcare disparities and inequities exist in a variety of environments and manifest in diagnostic and therapeutic measures. In this commentary, we highlight our experience examining our organization’s urgent care respiratory encounter antibiotic prescribing practices. We identified differences in prescribing based on several individual characteristics including patient age, race, ethnicity, preferred language, and patient and/or clinician gender. Our approach can serve as an electronic health record (EHR)–based methodology for disparity and inequity audits in other systems and for other conditions.
Background Stenotrophomonas maltophilia (SMA) is an opportunistic pathogen that causes significant morbidity and mortality and has been associated with outbreaks in various hospital environments. We describe an outbreak of SMA in our intensive care unit (ICU) and highlight the sink drain as the probable source of SMA. Methods Clinical surveillance for hospital-acquired infections due to SMA was instituted in December of 2017, when a cluster of cases was identified in our ICU. We first performed an environmental survey in random sites in our ICU rooms: high-touch surfaces, drains in handwashing sinks, clean water, enteral feeding, and ice machines. SMA was only found in the sink drain. We then performed an environmental survey focused on sink drains and the surrounding areas. We identified rooms where patients positive for SMA were previously hospitalized. Sampling sites were standardized for all rooms: bed rail, sink drain, splash zone, and air near sinks. Bed rails were swabbed with sponge-swabs and sink drains with flocked swabs with liquid Amies transport media. Swab samples were cultured in broth and solid media. Splash zone samples were collected using MacConkey agar plates left for four hours immediately adjacent and at one foot from the sink. Air samples were also collected for 10 minutes onto MacConkey agar plates using EMD Millipore MAS-100 NT impactor air sampler. All media was incubated aerobically at 35-37°C. Identification of all isolated gram-negative organisms was performed using MALDI-TOF MS. Results Five rooms were surveyed (Table 1). All rooms were found to have medical supplies within the splash zone. 100% (5/5) of sink drain samples had SMA recovered in culture, compared to 10% (1/10) of splash zone samples, 20% (1/5) of air samples, and 20% (1/5) of bed rails. In addition, we isolated other gram-negative organisms. We repeated the environmental survey after placing a sink drain cover in rooms found to have SMA in areas other than the drain. In the follow-up survey, we found no growth in cultures except for air samples (Table 2). Conclusion Sink drains pose a risk for SMA, possibly via contamination of medical supplies near sinks. Further investigation, including sequencing of environmental and clinical isolates, is needed to understand the mode of transmission. Disclosures All Authors: No reported disclosures.
Background Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) remain a serious public health concern. The state of Utah has the lowest percentage of adults 18-64 years-old ever tested for HIV (26.5%) and the lowest percentage tested for HIV in the previous 12 months (6.5%). Increasing HIV testing in Utah is of the utmost importance. Delayed diagnoses and missed testing opportunities for HIV and other STIs exist. Encounters for evaluation of possible gonorrhea (GC) or chlamydia (CT) infection is a critical opportunity to co-test for HIV and syphilis. With continued growth, urgent care (UC) sites are well-positioned to increase STI diagnosis and treatment. We aimed to develop a multi-faceted quality improvement (QI) bundle to increase STI testing in our UC centers. Methods Intermountain Healthcare (IH) is a vertically integrated healthcare network predominantly in Utah and operates a network of 35 UC clinics across the state. In 2020, qualitative interviews to evaluate barriers to STI testing were performed with UC clinicians. Based on these interviews a QI initiative was designed and implemented throughout 2021. The bundle included clinician education, electronic health record (EHR) improvements, and automatic referral for patients with a new diagnosis of HIV to an Infectious Diseases (ID) physician (Methods Image 1). We compared co-testing rates before (July 2018 – December 2020) and after the intervention began (March 2021 – April 2022). Methods Table 1 The quality improvement (QI) initiative began in 2021 and consisted of multiple components as detailed below. Results 13,715 and 5,628 UC encounters were associated with GC/CT testing during the pre-intervention and intervention periods, respectively. HIV co-testing was performed in 2,784 (20.3%) GC/CT testing encounters in the pre-intervention period and in 1,674 (29.7%) encounters during the intervention, a relative increase of 37.6%. HIV/syphilis co-testing was performed in 2,304 (16.8%) GC/CT testing encounters and 1,225 (21.8%) encounters during the pre-intervention and intervention phases, respectively. From January 1 2022 – April 1 2022 3 new outpatient HIV diagnoses were identified. The average time from diagnosis to contact with an ID provider was 30.0 hours. Results Image 1 Co-testing rates for GC/CT UC encounters are presented for HIV (blue), syphilis (green), and HIV/syphilis (orange). Testing reagent quality issues in early 2022 lead to an abrupt decline in syphilis co-testing and once these issues were resolved co-testing trends returned to similar rates prior to the reagent quality issue and testing limitation. Conclusion Multi-modal QI initiatives may increase STI testing rates within UC centers of integrated healthcare systems. Further study is needed to optimize STI screening, diagnosis, and care in UC centers. Disclosures Kimberly D. Brunisholz, PhD, MST, Johnson and Johnson: Advisor/Consultant.
BackgroundCommunity parenteral antimicrobial therapy (CoPAT) allows patients to receive intravenous (IV) antimicrobials outside the hospital; however, inappropriate use occurs and can lead to adverse outcomes. In addition, these patients are at high risk of readmission. Our objective was to assess the quality of CoPAT in a large healthcare system in order to guide implementation of an intervention requiring mandatory review by antimicrobial stewardship.MethodsWe identified patients with orders for IV antimicrobials at discharge between January 1 and December 10, 2018. Patients were excluded if transferred to an acute care facility, left against medical advice, or died. 250 patients were selected using a random number generator and reviewed consecutively until 100 confirmed CoPAT encounters were identified. Each encounter was evaluated for evidence of ID consultation, opportunities for stewardship interventions in seven categories (See Table 1), and adverse events such as emergency room (ER) visits and readmissions.ResultsThe query identified 4,642 potential CoPAT discharges from 22 hospitals (see Table 2). 117 encounters were reviewed to reach 100 true CoPAT discharges (85% query accuracy). Of these, 55 (55%) received a formal ID consult, 6 (6%) had an ID pharmacist or ID physician curbside, and 5 (5%) had an ID clinic follow-up appointment scheduled without formal ID consult. Opportunity for stewardship intervention was found in 50 (50%) patients (see Table 1). There were 31 (31%) patients who were seen in the ER (n = 21) and/or re-admitted (n = 19) to the hospital during or shortly after completion of CoPAT, of which 25 (81%) were potentially related to CoPAT, including abnormal laboratory findings, PICC-line complications, and signs or symptoms of infection.ConclusionCoPAT patients are complex with high healthcare utilization. Mandatory ID review of patients receiving CoPAT has the potential to impact 2,000 lives annually in a large health system. Disclosures All authors: No reported disclosures.
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