Health promotion, risk stratification, and treatment options to decrease hospitalization rates for community-acquired pneumonia in adults.

Purpose: Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is a serious illness and hospitalization for this illness is expensive. There is much the nurse practitioner (NP) can do to prevent and manage this illness.

Data Sources: Review of current literature, medical/nursing references, and data from the healthcare utilization project (HCUP).

Conclusions: The use of health promotion, risk stratification, and current evidence-based treatment guidelines can help to decrease hospitalization rates for CAP for adults.

Implications For Practice: NPs are experts at health promotion and evidence-based practice. Adhering to these practices and using risk stratification, NPs can help to further decrease hospitalization rates for CAP lowering healthcare costs related to this serious illness.