Decreased hospital readmissions after programmatic strengthening of an outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy (OPAT) program

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether a structured OPAT program supervised by an infectious disease physician and led by an OPAT nurse decreased hospital readmission rates and OPAT-related complications and whether it affected clinical cure. We also evaluated predictors of readmission while receiving OPAT. PATIENTS: A convenience sample of 428 patients admitted to a tertiary-care hospital in Chicago, Illinois, with infections requiring intravenous antibiotic therapy after hospital discharge. METHODS: In this retrospective, quasi-experimental study, we compared patients discharged on intravenous antimicrobials from an OPAT program before and after implementation of a structured ID physician and nurse-led OPAT program. The preintervention group consisted of patients discharged on OPAT managed by individual physicians without central program oversight or nurse care coordination. All-cause and OPAT-related readmissions were compared using the χ(2) test. Factors associated with readmission for OPAT-related problems at a significance level of P < .10 in univariate analysis were eligible for testing in a forward, stepwise, multinomial, logistic regression to identify independent predictors of readmission. RESULTS: In total, 428 patients were included in the study. Unplanned OPAT-related hospital readmissions decreased significantly after implementation of the structured OPAT program (17.8% vs 7%; P = .003). OPAT-related readmission reasons included infection recurrence or progression (53%), adverse drug reaction (26%), or line-associated issues (21%). Independent predictors of hospital readmission due to OPAT-related events included vancomycin administration and longer length of outpatient therapy. Clinical cure increased from 69.8% before the intervention to 94.9% after the intervention (P < .001). CONCLUSION: A structured ID physician and nurse-led OPAT program was associated with a decrease in OPAT-related readmissions and improved clinical cure.