Impact of Rapid Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing in Gram-Negative Rod Bacteremia: a Quasi-experimental Study
Catherine A. Hogan, Bertrand Ebunji, Nancy Watz, Kristopher Kapphahn, Joseph Rigdon, Emily Mui, Lina Meng, William Alegria, Marisa Holubar, Stanley C. Deresinski, Niaz Banaei
Abstract
Clinical justification for rapid antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) in Gram-negative rod (GNR) bacteremia is compelling; however, evidence supporting its value is sparse. We investigated the impact of rapid AST on clinical and antimicrobial stewardship outcomes in real-world practice. We performed a before-and-after quasi-experimental study from February 2018 to July 2019 at a tertiary hospital of the 24-h/day, 7-day/week implementation of the direct Vitek 2 AST method from positive blood culture broth for GNR bacteremia with electronic isolate-specific de-escalation comments and daytime antibiotic stewardship program (ASP) intervention.