Objective: An out-patient and home parenteral antibiotic therapy programme for the treatment of suitable infections was developed over a four year period. This paper describes the impact of one year's experience of its implementation on various measures of outcome.
Design: Each patient treatment has a full integrated care pathway (ICP) and patient satisfaction questionnaire completed. The ICP documents the clinical progress of the patient and incorporates various measures of quality of care on the 101 number of patients treated from April 1998 to March 1999 are presented here.
Setting: Dundee Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (now Tayside University Hospitals NHS Trust).
Subjects: Patients with a range of infections requiring intravenous antibiotics.
Main measures: Number of patients treated with various infections, clinical and microbiological outcome, drug and vascular access complication rates, impact on drug costs and in-patient bed days, and measurement of patient satisfaction/quality of life.
Results: Patients were treated over a 12 month period. 51.5 per cent had skin & soft tissue infections and 22.8 per cent bone & joint sepsis. 57 per cent of patients received out-patient and 34 per cent self or carer administered home therapy. Ninety-four per cent of patients were cured or improved following treatment. Only 7.5 per cent of patients required an unscheduled admission to hospital. Twelve per cent of patients had some type of vascular device related adverse event (partly due to a faulty batch of lines) and six per cent of patients had a drug related reaction. The additional daily cost of drugs was minimal (< 12 Pounds/day) and more than 1,461 bed days have been saved across the Directorates. The patient satisfaction level was high.