Background: Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) is a common, often nosocomial infection associated with substantial morbidity and mortality. Antibiotics are the most important modifiable risk factor, but empiric antibiotics remain appropriate for many patients with severe acute illness. Which antibiotics minimize the risk of CDI remains an important unanswered question. Because protective equipment and isolation were [...]

Background: Antibiotics are frequently prescribed—and overprescribed—at hospital discharge, leading to adverse-events and patient harm. Antibiotic overuse at discharge varies widely across hospitals, with rates of overuse differing up to 5-fold.(1) Our understanding of what approaches optimize prescribing at discharge is limited. Recently, we published the ROAD (Reducing Overuse of Antibiotics at Discharge) Home Framework which [...]

Background: Timely identification and treatment are integral to sepsis management in emergency department (ED) and inpatient settings. Increasingly, automated alerts embedded in electronic health records (EHRs) are used to expedite sepsis detection but may lead to false alarms and increased alarm fatigue. Additionally, recent data have demonstrated that the EPIC Sepsis Model—a proprietary sepsis alert [...]

Background: Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is the most common infectious diagnosis necessitating adult hospitalization in the United States (US). Timely diagnosis of CAP is important to improve patient outcomes. However, overdiagnosis of CAP, or treatment of CAP despite inadequate signs or symptoms of CAP, may also pose a significant threat to patient safety. Potential harm of [...]

Background: Up to 10% of hospitalized patients report an allergy to penicillin, however studies have shown that the majority of these are not clinically significant reactions.1,2 Unverified penicillin allergies increase overall patient mortality as they lead to use of broad-spectrum antibiotics that are less effective and have more side effects.3 Recent studies have found that [...]

Background: Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) is a common, often nosocomial infection associated with substantial morbidity and mortality. Antibiotics are the most important modifiable risk factor, but empiric antibiotics remain appropriate for many patients with severe acute illness. Which antibiotics minimize the risk of CDI remains an important unanswered question. Because protective equipment and isolation were [...]

Background: Antibiotics are frequently prescribed—and overprescribed—at hospital discharge, leading to adverse-events and patient harm. Antibiotic overuse at discharge varies widely across hospitals, with rates of overuse differing up to 5-fold.(1) Our understanding of what approaches optimize prescribing at discharge is limited. Recently, we published the ROAD (Reducing Overuse of Antibiotics at Discharge) Home Framework which [...]

Case Presentation: Prosthetic valve endocarditis (PVE) is predominantly caused by staphylococcus aureusand streptococcus viridian. Infective endocarditis (IE) due to Burkholderia cepacia israre. We present a case of a 27-year-old man with history of injection drug use, IE of aorticand mitral valve status post replacement with bioprosthetic valves 6 months ago, whopresented with fever, chills, dyspnea and [...]