Antibiotic Timing and Errors in Diagnosing Pneumonia.
- Resource Type
- Article
- Authors
- Welker, James A.; Huston, Michelle; McCue, Jack D.
- Source
- Archives of Internal Medicine. 2/25/2008, Vol. 168 Issue 4, p351-356. 6p. 1 Chart.
- Subject
- *PNEUMONIA
*EMERGENCY medical services
*LUNG diseases
*ANTIBIOTICS
*EVALUATION of medical care
*HEALTH outcome assessment
*EMERGENCY medicine
*MEDICAL care
*MEDICAL research
- Language
- ISSN
- 0003-9926
The article presents a study that evaluates the quality of care received by patients with community acquired pneumonia (CAP) whose time to first antibiotic dose (TFAD) is less than four hours of presentation to the emergency department (ED). Under the study, adult admissions for CAP were reviewed and the patients were grouped in two, where in the first group includes those with TFAD of less than eight hours and second group are those with TFAD of less than four hours. The accuracy of diagnosis for CAP by ED physicians were also examined. Result shows that group two patients were 39% less likely to meet the predefined diagnostic criteria for CAP compared to the first group. This is noted to suggest that TFAD of less than four hours seems to reduce the accuracy of pneumonia diagnosis.