Clinical pathway care improves outcomes among patients hospitalized for community-acquired pneumonia

Adherence to guidelines' empirical antibiotic recommendations and community-acquired pneumonia outcome

“…Prolonged LOS was defined as any stay longer than the 75th percentile of the entire population [16,22]. Mortality was defined as death during the first 30 days following admission to the emergency department.…”

“…HAUCK et al [16] validated a clinical pathway based on the 2000 Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) guidelines [14]. MORTENSEN et al [17] determined that adherence to either the 2001 ATS or 2000 IDSA guidelines may reduce 30-day mortality among patients hospitalised with pneumonia.…”

Evaluation of guidelines for community-acquired pneumonia: a story of confounders, surprises and challenges

“…The populations studied were very different: some included all hospitalised patients [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12], whereas others included subgroups such as outpatients [13] and intensive care unit (ICU) patients [14]. Most studies were retrospective in design [5][6][7][8][9]14] and one relied on a pre-post intervention design [10]. The selected outcomes usually covered length of hospital stay and mortality [5][6][7][8][9][10][11]14].…”

“…Most studies were retrospective in design [5][6][7][8][9]14] and one relied on a pre-post intervention design [10]. The selected outcomes usually covered length of hospital stay and mortality [5][6][7][8][9][10][11]14]. Most studies focused on antimicrobial treatment as an intervention variable [6,8,9,11,14], while others evaluated clinical pathways [5].…”

“…The selected outcomes usually covered length of hospital stay and mortality [5][6][7][8][9][10][11]14]. Most studies focused on antimicrobial treatment as an intervention variable [6,8,9,11,14], while others evaluated clinical pathways [5]. This heterogeneity of study design means conflicting results are not surprising, although most studies found at least some effect of guideline adherence, most in terms of shorter hospitalisation [7,10,11] but some in terms of mortality [5][6][7][8][9].…”