Utilization and Impact of Pharmacist-led, Urinary Culture Follow-Up After Discharge from the Emergency Department

Introduction: Urinary tract infections (UTI) are a common reason for an emergency department (ED) visit. The majority of these patients are discharged directly home without a hospital admission.  After discharge, emergency physicians have traditionally managed the care of the patient if a change is warranted (as a result of urine culture results). However, in recent years clinical pharmacists in the ED have largely incorporated this task into their standard practice. In our study, we aimed to 1) describe our unique process in having a pharmacist-led, urinary culture follow-up, and 2) compare it to our previous, more traditional process.Methods: In our retrospective study, we evaluated the impact of a pharmacist-led, urinary culture follow-up program after discharge from the ED. We included patients prior to and after the implementation of our new protocol to compare the differences. The primary outcome was time to intervention after urine culture result was released....
Source: Western Journal of Emergency Medicine - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Source Type: research