Time to first dose of antimicrobial for patients presenting to The Alfred Emergency and Trauma Centre
2012 (English)Independent thesis Advanced level (professional degree), 20 credits / 30 HE credits
Student thesis
Abstract [en]
Time to first dose of parenteral antimicrobial for patients presenting to The Alfred Emergency and Trauma Centre -A prospective observational study
Julia Nagy
Supervisors: Susan Poole, Research Co-ordinator, Department of Pharmacy, Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, Australia and Christina Roman, Emergency Pharmacist, Department of Pharmacy and Emergency and Trauma Centre, Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, Australia Examinor: Margareta Hammarlund-Udeneas, Department of Pharmaceutical Bioscience, Division of Pharmacokinetics and Drug Therapy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Uppsala University 30 hp
Introduction: Patients with serious infectious diseases as febrile neutropenia should be administered antibiotics within 30 minutes and for sepsis in less than 60 minutes of presentation to the emergency department. For community-acquired pneumonia, receiving antibiotics within four hours of the arrival to hospital has been shown to reduce the mortality of the patient. Aim: The aim of this study was to evaluate the time taken to prescribe and administer the first dose of parenteral antimicrobial agent from the time of arrival, to patients presenting to The Alfred Emergency and Trauma Centre (E&TC) with suspected infections. Materials and Methods: A prospective observational cohort of patients presenting to the E&TC and prescribed their first parenteral antimicrobial agent followed by retrospective search for additional information about the patients. Results: A total of 179 patients were included (40% female), median age was 57 years (IQR 35 to 79 years). Median baseline time to first prescribed antimicrobial agent was 120 minutes (IQR 52 to 230 minutes). Time to administration of first antimicrobial agent was in median 198 minutes (IQR 99 to 319 minutes). Conclusions: This report shows that screening for patients at The Alfred E&TC for the time to first prescription of parenteral antimicrobial agent was successful. The study identified that the majority of patients received antimicrobials beyond the preferred range of the guidelines and other literature. This will be addressed for future E&TC improvements.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2012. , p. 32
Keywords [en]
time to first prescribed antimicrobial agent
National Category
Pharmaceutical Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-193102OAI: oai:DiVA.org:uu-193102DiVA, id: diva2:601339
External cooperation
The Alfred Hospital
Subject / course
Pharmacotherapy
Educational program
Master of Science Programme in Pharmacy
Uppsok
Medicine
Supervisors
Examiners
2013-01-312013-01-292018-01-11Bibliographically approved