Using Clinical Scenarios to Understand Preventability of Clostridium difficile Infections by Inpatient Antibiotic Stewardship Programs

The Impact of Diagnostic Stewardship on Clostridium difficile Infections

Attributable inpatient costs of recurrent Clostridium difficile infections.

OBJECTIVE To determine the attributable inpatient costs of recurrent Clostridium difficile infections (CDIs). DESIGN Retrospective cohort study. SETTING Academic, urban, tertiary care hospital. PATIENTS A total of 3,958 patients aged 18 years or more who developed an initial CDI episode from 2003 through 2009. METHODS Data were collected electronically from hospital administrative datab...

Temporal effects of antibiotic use and Clostridium difficile infections.

OBJECTIVES We tested a previously published model for the analysis of the temporal relationship between antibiotic use and the incidence of Clostridium difficile infection in a hospital with stable incidence of infection at >1 case per 1000 admissions per month. METHODS The study period was from April 2004 to June 2008 and used data from Infection Control and Hospital Pharmacy. We first descr...

Extraintestinal Clostridium difficile infections.

BACKGROUND  Clostridium difficile causes diarrhea that ranges from a benign, self-limiting antibiotic use-associated disease to a life-threatening pseudomembranous colitis. Clostridium difficile has rarely been isolated in extraintestinal infections. Our objective was to characterize clinical features and risk factors of these infections. METHODS Extraintestinal C. difficile infections (CDIs) w...

The Antimicrobial Stewardship Approach to Combating Clostridium Difficile

Clostridium difficile remains a major public health threat and continues to contribute to excess morbidity, mortality and healthcare costs. Antimicrobial stewardship programs have demonstrated success in combating C. difficile, primarily through antibiotic restrictive strategies. As the incidence and prevalence of C. difficile associate disease continues to increase both in the hospital and com...