Safety of prolonged outpatient courses of intravenous antibiotics: a prospective cohort study.

Objectives: The perceived need for prolonged intravenous antibiotic courses has become a major driver behind the growth of outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy (OPAT) services. Several recent randomized controlled trials demonstrate noninferiority of an early switch to oral therapy and highlight the need to accurately quantify harms associated with OPAT.

Methods: We conducted a 10-year prospective cohort study in a tertiary hospital OPAT service.

Determining the Risk of Sepsis Using Nurse-Compounded Elastomeric Pumps for Continuous Infusion in Outpatient Parenteral Antibiotic Therapy.

Limited availability of compounded antibiotics used for continuous infusion outpatient parenteral antibiotic therapy (OPAT) can delay or interrupt an OPAT course. To solve this problem, OPAT nurses at a hospital in Australia have been compounding elastomeric pumps for immediate use. The incidence of sepsis in 5014 patients before and after the introduction of nurse compounding was compared.

Home intravenous antibiotic therapy and allergic drug reactions: is there a case for routine supply of anaphylaxis kits?

This study aimed to estimate the risk of an allergic reaction for patients receiving home intravenous antibiotics, and to identify the potential advantages and disadvantages of providing injectable epinephrine in this patient population. In this study, 770 patients received 1000 courses of home intravenous therapy with 25 different antibiotics for 37 conditions. The patients in the program experienced 28 allergic reactions.