Shortening treatment duration for uncomplicated community acquired pneumonia to align with best practice guidelines in a large academic paediatric emergency department

Abstract

Recommendations for antibiotic therapy for community acquired pneumonia recently changed from 10-day to 5-day duration. This quality improvement project aimed to change the practice of providers in an urban, free-standing children's hospital paediatric emergency department in the United States to match the updated recommendations. Improvement interventions included educational outreach, data sharing, on-site reminders, and audit-and-feedback. The project included analysis of ED return visits to monitor possible treatment failure. Interventions successfully increased 5-day antibiotic prescription rate from 3% to 85% within 12 months.