There has been a marked increase in the time to antibiotic administration for ICU patients with sepsis across Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals, but there is no evidence that they are being given inappropriately, according to new findings.
Accelerating time-to-antibiotics in sepsis means that patients will be treated earlier, but it could also result in more patients receiving antibiotics, including those without infection. This in turn may contribute to antimicrobial resistance.
“The time to antibiotics for sepsis accelerated across VA hospitals, and declined from 5.8 to 4.8 hours between 2013 and 2018,” said lead study author Sarah Seelye, PhD, data scientist at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Ann Arbor, Mich. “Despite this, there was no evidence between hospital level antibiotic acceleration in sepsis and antibiotic use among all patients with potential sepsis.”
The results were presented at the Critical Care Congress sponsored by the Society of Critical Care Medicine, which was held virtually this year.
“Many hospitals have initiated programs like this to accelerate the use of antibiotics in patients with severe sepsis, but at the same time, there is growing concern that earlier antibiotic initiation may result in increased antibiotic treatment overall, including those without infection,” said Dr. Seelye. “However, to date, there is little evidence to support this claim.”
The goal of their study was to investigate whether hospital-level acceleration in antibiotic timing for sepsis was associated with increasing antibiotic use among patients hospitalized with potential infection.
They identified 1,101,239 hospitalizations for potential infection in 132 VA hospitals during the period from 2013 to 2018. Of these patients, 608,128 (55.2%) received antibiotics within 48 hours of presentation to the emergency department. A total of 117,435 (10.7%) met the criteria for sepsis.
Hospitals were classified into tertiles of antibiotic acceleration for sepsis: rapid, slow, and flat.
In the VA system, patients with severe sepsis began receiving faster antibiotic treatment in 2017, compared with earlier years. In 2017-2018 more than 20% of sepsis patients had received their first treatment within 2 hours, compared with 14% in 2013-1014.
In 2017-2018, more than 20% of sepsis patients had received their first treatment within 2 hours, compared with 14% in 2013-1014.
Hospitals categorized as rapid accelerators decreased their time to antibiotic initiation from 6.4 hours to 4.5 hours, while slow accelerators went from 5.6 to 4.6 hours from 2013 to 2018, and flat accelerators remained stable during the time period (5.3 hours down to 5.2 hours).
However, statistical analysis showed no real difference between the three groups in antibiotic prescribing.
“Despite this, there was no evidence between hospital-level antibiotic acceleration in sepsis and antibiotic use among all patients with potential sepsis,” said Dr. Seelye.
Weighing in on the study results, Craig M. Coopersmith, MD, professor of surgery at Emory University, Atlanta, noted that these results are very convincing, considering the size of the study and that it encompassed 132 different facilities.
Dr. Craig M. Coopersmith
“It’s difficult to say how generalizable these results are but they are definitely generalizable to all hospitals in the VA system,” he said. “In general, there are similarities between large health care systems, and it would be surprising if we found the opposite to be true in non-VA health systems.”
However, he emphasized that there is some possibility that the results would not be identical because different health care systems have different methods of providing care.
“This paper does show that you can get antibiotics into patients faster, which can be life saving, without inappropriately using them on everybody,” Dr. Coopersmith said.
He explained that there is more attention being paid now to antibiotic stewardship, compared with 10 or 15 years ago. “Given the choice of giving someone a single dose of antibiotics who may not need it, as opposed to withholding them from someone who is septic which is life threatening, the risk benefit ratio weighs heavily towards starting them early,” he said. “And then escalate rapidly.”
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