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CHICAGO, Feb. 21 (Xinhua) – A study from the University of Washington's Faculty of Medicine in St. Louis says that a simple modification of the electronic system used by doctors to order badyzes of medical devices is not enough. urine can halve the number of bacterial cultures. orderly tests without compromising the ability to identify people who need treatment for urinary tract infections (UTIs).
According to a press release published Thursday on the university's website, university researchers made two changes to encourage more informative urine tests at Barnes-Jewish Hospital . First, they sent an email to all clinicians explaining why they ordered a urine test strip test before applying for a bacterial culture test. ; Then, they changed the electronic control system by setting a default urine test strip test followed by a bacterial culture test, rather than a culture test. alone, which was previously the first option.
The researchers compared all the urine culture tests ordered at the Barnes-Jewish Hospital in the 15 months preceding the intervention, organized from April 2016 to the following 15 months. Before the intervention, doctors ordered 15,746 urine cultures, or 38 orders per 1,000 patient-days. They then had 45% fewer orders: 8,823 in total, or 21 orders per 1,000 patient days.
In particular, the number of urine cultures in people with high-risk urinary tract catheters fell from 7.8 to 1.9 per 1,000 patient-days, while the number of UI badociated with a catheter has not changed at all. During each period, 125 urinary tract infections badociated with the catheter were diagnosed.
"Everyone still fears that by ordering less urine cultures, we might miss some urinary tract infections, but we have shown that this was not the case," said David K. Warren, author and infectious disease specialist, professor of medicine at the university.
Since it costs around $ 15 to carry out a urine culture, the intervention saved about $ 104,000 in lab costs over a 15-month period. Previous studies have shown that minimizing unjustified tests reduces the abuse of antibiotics.
Bacteria present in the bladder can cause urinary infections, characterized by burning or pain when urinating, frequent urges to urinate, and fever. Urinary tract infections are treated with antibiotics. But some people, often elderly or diabetic, harbor harmless bacterial communities in their bladders that do not require antibiotic treatment.
The study is published Feb. 21 in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology. Enditem
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