Open AccessUsing diagnostic stewardship to reduce rates, healthcare expenditures and accurately identify cases of hospital-onset Clostridioides difficile infection
Author(s) -
Dipesh Solanky,
Derek Juang,
Scott T Johns,
Ian Drobish,
Sanjay R. Mehta,
Monika Kumaraswamy
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
infection control and hospital epidemiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.243
H-Index - 138
eISSN - 1559-6834
pISSN - 0899-823X
DOI - 10.1017/ice.2020.375
Subject(s) - clostridioides , medicine , stewardship (theology) , clostridium difficile , nucleic acid amplification tests , diagnostic test , emergency medicine , health care , intensive care medicine , acute care , infection control , microbiology and biotechnology , antibiotics , virology , politics , chlamydia trachomatis , political science , law , economics , biology , economic growth
Lack of judicious testing can result in the incorrect diagnosis of Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI), unnecessary CDI treatment, increased costs and falsely augmented hospital-acquired infection (HAI) rates. We evaluated facility-wide interventions used at the VA San Diego Healthcare System (VASDHS) to reduce healthcare-onset, healthcare-facility-associated CDI (HO-HCFA CDI), including the use of diagnostic stewardship with test ordering criteria.