Root cause analysis and subsequent intervention to improve first dose antibiotic turnaround time for hospitalized pediatric patients.

Objective: Antibiotic timing is used as a quality standard for hospital accreditation and is an important quality measure. The study aim was to identify barriers in the process of first dose antibiotic administration on the pediatric floors at a tertiary healthcare center and carry out and test an intervention to improve turnaround time to less than one hour.

Methods: We conducted a quasi-experimental pre-post study of hospitalized pediatric patients up to 18 years of age initiated on intravenous antibiotics.