Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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Comparative Study
Effects of a pneumonia clinical pathway on time to antibiotic treatment, length of stay, and mortality.
A clinical pathway standardizing management for patients with an admission diagnosis of pneumonia was initiated after a previous study found delayed time to initial antibiotic administration, a longer length of stay, and higher mortality rate for the authors' patients as compared with those in a "benchmark" hospital. The current study was undertaken to determine whether implementation of the clinical pathway resulted in statistically significant decreases for these measures, both in the initial year following pathway implementation and two years later. ⋯ This study demonstrates that implementation of a pneumonia clinical pathway for the management of hospitalized patients admitted via the ED decreases the time to initial antibiotic treatment and increases the proportion of patients initially treated with antibiotics in the ED. These effects were evident in the first year following pathway implementation and sustained at the three-year study interval.
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Editorial Comment Review
Changing clinical practice in geriatric emergency medicine.