Study findings published in Hospital Pharmacy support the use of rapid diagnostic tests (RDT) for bacteremia in small community hospitals with infectious disease (ID) telehealth support, with additional benefits achieved through the use of realtime pharmacist intervention (RTPI). With prior research suggesting optimal patient outcomes with ID-trained antimicrobial stewardship personnel intervening on RDT results but limited data regarding RDT use at small community hospitals that often lack on-site ID clinicians, Brandon Tritle, PharmD, BCIDP, and colleagues assessed the use of RDTs with and without RTPI “at a small community hospital with local pharmacist training and asynchronous support from a remote ID telehealth pharmacist.” Median times to targeted therapy were 2 hours in the RDT plus RTPI group, 25 hours in the RDT-only group, and 51 hours in a control group. Median time to any de-escalation was significantly shorter with RDT plus RTPI (14 hours) when compared with RDT only (33 hours) and control (45 hours). Median lengths of stay were 4.0 hours with RDT plus RTPI, 4.1 for RDT only, and 5.5 for control.
