TY - JOUR
T1 - Conditional reflex to urine culture
T2 - Evaluation of a diagnostic stewardship intervention within the Veterans' Affairs and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Practice-Based Research Network
AU - Claeys, Kimberly C.
AU - Zhan, Min
AU - Pineles, Lisa
AU - Lydecker, Alison
AU - Clore, Gosia
AU - Goto, Michihiko
AU - Leekha, Surbhi
AU - Linkin, Darren
AU - Evans, Charlesnika T.
AU - Trautner, Barbara W.
AU - Goetz, Matthew B.
AU - Baghdadi, Jonathan D.
AU - Perencevich, Eli N.
AU - Morgan, Daniel J.
N1 - Funding Information:
K.C.C. is a co-investigator for a merit award for infection control work from the VA Health Services Research and Development Service. She has received study supplies from BioFire and GenMark Diagnostics and has served as a speaker for Luminex Corporation and GenMark Diagnostics. D.J.M. is an investigator or coinvestigator on awards from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention; the National Institutes of Health; and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality merit award for infection control work from the VA Health Services Research and Development Service. B.W.T. is supported in part by the Center for Innovations in Quality, Effectiveness and Safety (CIN 13-413) at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center, Houston, Texas.
Funding Information:
This work was supported by the US Department of Veterans’ Affairs and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Infection Control Practice Based Research Network (PBRN).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 by The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America. All rights reserved.
PY - 2021/2
Y1 - 2021/2
N2 - Objective: In the absence of pyuria, positive urine cultures are unlikely to represent infection. Conditional urine reflex culture policies have the potential to limit unnecessary urine culturing. We evaluated the impact of this diagnostic stewardship intervention. Design: We conducted a retrospective, quasi-experimental (nonrandomized) study, with interrupted time series, from August 2013 to January 2018 to examine rates of urine cultures before versus after the policy intervention. We compared 3 intervention sites to 3 control sites in an aggregated series using segmented negative binomial regression. Setting: The study included 6 acute-care hospitals within the Veterans' Health Administration across the United States. Participants: Adult patients with at least 1 urinalysis ordered during acute-care admission, excluding pregnant patients or those undergoing urological procedures, were included. Methods: At the intervention sites, urine cultures were performed if a preceding urinalysis met prespecified criteria. No such restrictions occurred at the control sites. The primary outcome was the rate of urine cultures performed per 1,000 patient days. The safety outcome was the rate of gram-negative bloodstream infection per 1,000 patient days. Results: The study included 224,573 urine cultures from 50,901 admissions in 24,759 unique patients. Among the intervention sites, the overall average number of urine cultures performed did not significantly decrease relative to the preintervention period (5.9% decrease; P = 0.8) but did decrease by 21% relative to control sites (P <.01). We detected no significant difference in the rates of gram-negative bloodstream infection among intervention or control sites (P =.49). Conclusions: Conditional urine reflex culture policies were associated with a decrease in urine culturing without a change in the incidence of gram-negative bloodstream infection.
AB - Objective: In the absence of pyuria, positive urine cultures are unlikely to represent infection. Conditional urine reflex culture policies have the potential to limit unnecessary urine culturing. We evaluated the impact of this diagnostic stewardship intervention. Design: We conducted a retrospective, quasi-experimental (nonrandomized) study, with interrupted time series, from August 2013 to January 2018 to examine rates of urine cultures before versus after the policy intervention. We compared 3 intervention sites to 3 control sites in an aggregated series using segmented negative binomial regression. Setting: The study included 6 acute-care hospitals within the Veterans' Health Administration across the United States. Participants: Adult patients with at least 1 urinalysis ordered during acute-care admission, excluding pregnant patients or those undergoing urological procedures, were included. Methods: At the intervention sites, urine cultures were performed if a preceding urinalysis met prespecified criteria. No such restrictions occurred at the control sites. The primary outcome was the rate of urine cultures performed per 1,000 patient days. The safety outcome was the rate of gram-negative bloodstream infection per 1,000 patient days. Results: The study included 224,573 urine cultures from 50,901 admissions in 24,759 unique patients. Among the intervention sites, the overall average number of urine cultures performed did not significantly decrease relative to the preintervention period (5.9% decrease; P = 0.8) but did decrease by 21% relative to control sites (P <.01). We detected no significant difference in the rates of gram-negative bloodstream infection among intervention or control sites (P =.49). Conclusions: Conditional urine reflex culture policies were associated with a decrease in urine culturing without a change in the incidence of gram-negative bloodstream infection.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85095835538&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85095835538&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1017/ice.2020.400
DO - 10.1017/ice.2020.400
M3 - Article
C2 - 32838829
AN - SCOPUS:85095835538
SN - 0899-823X
VL - 42
SP - 176
EP - 181
JO - Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology
JF - Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology
IS - 2
ER -