Development and evaluation of a multisector educational intervention to improve appropriate management of suspected UTIs within a care home setting.
A system wide approach across the GP practice, admission avoidance team and care homes was implemented.
There was an improvement across all educational domains assessed in the questionnaire after educational presentation. This included improved awareness of; PINCHME acronym (52%), first-line empirical antibiotic (11%), use of Cockcroft-gault as preferred formula in elderly patients (65%), rationale and renal figure for dose cap on Nitrofurantoin (70%), safety concerns with nitrofurantoin (76%) and non-antimicrobial therapies for post-menopausal women (92%).
Prescribing data from a 3 month period in 2022 showed 54% of prescriptions for UTI did not have MSU sent. 58% has unclear diagnosis documented within clinical notes, and 100% did not have Cockcroft gault used to calculate renal function. Prescribing data from the same 3month period in 2023 should 100% of prescriptions for UTI did not have MSU sent. 0% has unclear diagnosis documented within clinical notes, and 100% used Cockcroft gault to calculate renal function with 2 patients treated according to this calculation. There was also a 52% reduction in volume of antibiotic prescriptions generated.
