The impact of diagnostic microbiology on de-escalation of antimicrobial therapy in hospitalised adults.
William L HamiltonSacha-Marie PiresSamantha LippettVikesh GudkaElizabeth L A CrossMartin J LlewelynPublished in: BMC infectious diseases (2020)
The majority of diagnostic microbiology tests sent to inform clinical management yielded negative results. However, negative microbiology contributed little to clinical decision making about antimicrobial de-escalation, perhaps reflecting a lack of trust in negative results by treating clinicians. Improving the negative predictive value of currently available diagnostic microbiology could help hospital prescribers in de-escalating antimicrobial therapy.