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Discharging hospitalized patients to finish long antibiotic courses at home is a time-honored way for hospitals to improve length-of-stay statistics. But sometimes decisions to discharge such patients backfire, resulting in clinical complications and costly readmissions. Researchers analyzed postdischarge courses in 782 adults who were admitted to a Boston tertiary care facility and discharged home while still receiving intravenous antibiotics. The most common discharge diagnoses were bacteremia (24%), osteomyelitis (20%), and pyelonephritis (13%).
The 30-day readmission rate was 26%. Common reasons for readmission included worsening infection (30%), new infection (22%), adverse drug reaction (14%), and intravenous line complication (10%). T…