Dumkow LE, et al. – This paper sought to describe the pharmacist–led urgent care (UC) culture follow–up program and its impact on pharmacist workload. Findings suggested that a pharmacist–led culture follow–up program conducted using a collaborative practice agreement (CPA) could be expanded to UC sites within the same health system using existing clinical pharmacy staff along with post–graduate year–one (PGY1) pharmacy residents. A minimal increase in pharmacist workload was observed with service expansion. Addition of UC culture follow–up services to an existing Emergency Department (ED) program would allow health systems to expand antimicrobial stewardship initiatives to satellite locations.

Methods

• Authors performed this retrospective, descriptive study that included all patients discharged to home from UC with a positive culture from any site resulting between 1 January and 31 December 2016.
• They collected data regarding culture type, presence of intervention, and proportion of interventions made under the CPA.
• Additionally, they reported pharmacist workload as the number of call attempts made, new prescriptions written, and median time to complete follow–up per patient.
• Using descriptive statistics, data were reported.

Results

• Authors reviewed 1461 positive cultures for antibiotic appropriateness as part of the UC culture follow–up program, with 320 (22%) requiring follow–up intervention.
• Intervention was most commonly required in urine cultures (25%) and sexually transmitted diseases (25%).
• A median of 15 min was spent per intervention, with a median of one call (range 1–6 calls) needed to reach each patient.
• A new antimicrobial prescription was needed in less than half of patients at follow–up.