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Discharge Stewardship in Children's Hospitals

Implementing a Discharge Stewardship Bundle to Improve Antibiotic Use at Transition From Hospital to Home

Status
Active, not recruiting
Phases
NA
Study type
Interventional
Source
ClinicalTrials.gov
Registry ID
NCT05826873
Acronym
DISCO
Enrollment
1131
Registered
2023-04-24
Start date
2020-06-10
Completion date
2026-07-31
Last updated
2026-01-09

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

Community-acquired Pneumonia, Pneumonia, Bacterial, Pneumonia Childhood, Skin Infections, Soft Tissue Infections, Urinary Tract Infections

Keywords

Stewardship, Discharge Stewardship, Group-level feedback, Antibiotic, Community-acquired pneumonia, Skin and soft tissue infections, Urinary Tract Infections

Brief summary

The goal of this interventional study is to test if a discharge stewardship bundle is effective at reducing inappropriate antibiotic prescriptions at hospital discharge for children with the three common infections: community-acquired pneumonia (CAP), urinary tract infections (UTI), and skin/soft tissue infections (SSTI). The goals of this study are: * To develop, locally adapt, and implement a discharge stewardship intervention across four geographically diverse children's hospitals. * To measure the impact of the discharge stewardship intervention on antibiotic prescribing and patient outcome for three common pediatric infections. Families who are enrolled in the study will be asked to: * complete a one question wellness track on days 3, 7, and 21 after hospital discharge * complete a brief survey on days 7 and 21 after hospital discharge The study team will conduct interviews with the hospitalists at each of the four participating hospitals to create a discharge stewardship bundle. Once the bundle intervention is implemented, the hospitalists will be asked to follow prescribing guidelines for CAP, UTI, and SSTI. They will receive regular group-level feedback reports to show how well they follow the guidelines and motivate the hospitalists to follow the guidelines better.

Detailed description

Pediatric antibiotic stewardship programs (ASPs) in hospital and outpatient settings optimize the use of antibiotics to improve clinical outcomes, decrease adverse drug events, and reduce the emergence of antibiotic resistant bacteria. However, stewardship for patients at the transition from hospital discharge to home, or discharge stewardship, is an unmet need for several reasons. First, few pediatric stewardship programs perform discharge stewardship. Second, approximately 30% of pediatric patients receive antibiotics at hospital discharge. Third, the majority of antibiotic days prescribed for hospitalized patients occur after discharge. Fourth, up to half of discharge antibiotic prescriptions are suboptimal, which includes choosing the wrong drug, dose, route, or duration of therapy. This project will use an implementation science framework to develop, implement, and test the effectiveness of a multifaceted discharge stewardship intervention for hospitalized children with the three most common indications for antibiotic prescribing in hospitalized children - community acquired pneumonia (CAP), urinary tract infections (UTI), and skin/soft tissue infections (SSTI) - at four children's hospitals to establish a foundation for future expansion to additional target populations. Antibiotic choice, dose, route, and duration of therapy will be addressed. Aim 1 is to develop, locally adapt, and implement a discharge stewardship intervention across the four participating sites. The integrated Promoting Action on Research Implementation in Health Services (i-PARIHS) framework will guide a rapid formative evaluation to identify contextual factors likely to facilitate or hinder the implementation of a discharge stewardship intervention at each site. Based on these results, local facilitators will work to develop and implement a discharge stewardship intervention comprised of consensus driven clinical prescribing guidelines for CAP, UTI, and SSTI plus quarterly feedback of prescribing data based on these guidelines. Aim 2 is to measure the impact of the discharge stewardship intervention on antibiotic prescribing (the primary outcome) and patient-centered balancing measures (post-discharge treatment failure and adverse events). This project will form the foundation for future dissemination of discharge stewardship to a broader array of patient populations. Investigators on this proposal form the leadership of the Sharing Antimicrobial Reports for Pediatric Stewardship (SHARPS) Collaborative, a network comprised of more than 60 children's hospitals across North America that is uniquely positioned to adopt antimicrobial stewardship interventions designed to target prescribing at hospital discharge.

Interventions

BEHAVIORALDischarge antibiotic stewardship intervention

Hospitalists will be provided with group-level, quarterly feedback reports illustrating the number of prescriptions that had the appropriate antibiotic duration and appropriate antibiotic choice for each of the three conditions.

Sponsors

Seattle Children's Hospital
CollaboratorOTHER
Primary Children's Hospital
CollaboratorOTHER
St. Louis Children's Hospital
CollaboratorOTHER
University of Pennsylvania
CollaboratorOTHER
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
CollaboratorFED
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Lead SponsorOTHER

Study design

Allocation
NON_RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
SINGLE_GROUP
Primary purpose
OTHER
Masking
NONE

Intervention model description

Mixed methods implementation science study with a multicenter, quasi-experimental interrupted time-series design.

Eligibility

Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
28 Days to 18 Years
Healthy volunteers
No

Inclusion criteria

Clinician Inclusion Criteria 1. \>18 year old 2. Employed by the hospital as an attending physician, advanced practice provider, resident trainee or other clinical stakeholder (e.g. pharmacist, infectious diseases attending) Clinician

Exclusion criteria

1. \<18 years old 2. Not employed by the hospital Patient Inclusion Criteria 1. Subjects less than 18 years 2. Diagnosed with either uncomplicated community acquired pneumonia, urinary tract infections, skin/soft tissue infections 3. Admitted and discharged from study site Patient

Design outcomes

Primary

MeasureTime frameDescription
Rate of suboptimal prescribingup to 3 yearsThe primary objective of this study is to determine the impact of a discharge stewardship intervention on antibiotic prescribing and patient outcomes for three common pediatric infection after developing and implementing the intervention across four geographically diverse children's hospitals. Impact will be measured by the rate of suboptimal prescribing (drug, dose, route, and duration) for CAP, UTI, and SSTI across the four hospitals. Suboptimal prescribing will be measured using data collected from the electronic health record. The discharge prescription data (choice and duration) will be compared to the recommended guidelines to determine if the discharge prescription was on or off guideline.

Secondary

MeasureTime frameDescription
Impact of the discharge stewardship intervention on post-discharge treatment failureup to 3 yearsUsing a quasi-experimental design, the study team will assess the rate and trajectory of post-discharge treatment failure for CAP, UTI, and SSTI via patient report (post-discharge REDCap surveys)
Impact of the discharge stewardship intervention on adverse drug eventsup to 3 yearsUsing a quasi-experimental design, the study team will assess the rate and trajectory of adverse drug events for CAP, UTI, and SSTI via patient report (post-discharge REDCap surveys)

Countries

United States

Outcome results

None listed

Source: ClinicalTrials.gov · Data processed: Feb 4, 2026