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: Penicillin is the most commonly documented drug “allergy” on hospital admission. Patients with listed penicillin allergies have higher rates of treatment failures, antibiotic resistance, and average length of stay. This has downstream implications impacting healthcare utilization, infection prevalence, and cost. However, the majority of these reported allergies are inaccurate, and over 90% of these [...]