Reviewed and approved by the AAEM Board of Directors 3/1/2009.
- Define the Issue and State the Question
- A. Topic Area: The measurement of time to antibiotics for admitted patients with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) in the ED.
- B. General Issue: Unintended consequences of the implementation of a national guideline to assess antibiotic timing in CAP.
- C. Specific Questions: Executive Summary Measurement of time to first antibiotic dose (TFAD) in the emergency department (ED) in community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) in public reporting has been controversial. The validity of the data supporting TFAD measurement is inconsistent. And more recently, several unintended consequences associated with TFAD measurement have been reported. The purpose of this review was to find & evaluate original research articles that report outcomes data in CAP patients before-and-after the use of TFAD measurement and how TFAD measurement may increase in antibiotic overuse in other patients with non-CAP conditions.