A pharmacist-driven deprescribing protocol for negative urine and sexually transmitted infection cultures in the emergency department increases antibiotic-free days.

Purpose: Emergency department (ED) pharmacists commonly perform positive culture follow-ups that result in optimized antibiotic prescribing. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the potential positive impact on the outcome of antibiotic-free days through an ED pharmacist-driven protocol to contact patients with negative urine cultures and sexually transmitted infection (STI) test results who were discharged with antibiotics.

Methods: This was a single-center, prospective, observational, pre-post intervention study to determine antibiotic use in patients with negative urine cultures who were discharged from the Loyola Medical University Center ED with antibiotics prescribed.