✍ Scribed by Gregory B. Seymann
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Community‐acquired pneumonia (CAP) is one of 3 initial conditions for which the Joint Commission for Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services have defined quality measures. Eight “core measures” of pneumonia care have been targeted for reporting by U.S. hospitals to facilitate performance monitoring.
A review of the literature supporting the core measures was performed.
Indicators encouraging influenza vaccination and appropriate antibiotic selection had the most robust evidence. Rapid delivery of antibiotics also showed significant reduction in mortality, though the actual timing (4 versus 8 hours) varied between studies. Other measures, such as performance of blood cultures, pneumococcal vaccination, smoking cessation, and oxygenation assessment, demonstrated less obvious clinical benefit.
There is inherent value in setting standards of care for high‐impact conditions such as CAP, but these standards should be chosen on the basis of high‐quality research. Public reporting of the current measures is problematic, as it implies they represent best practices for CAP despite relatively weak evidence. Journal of Hospital Medicine 2006;1:344–353. © 2006 Society of Hospital Medicine.
📜 SIMILAR VOLUMES
Community-acquired pneumonia remains a common and serious illness, which affects children of all age groups. The spectrum of causative organisms is wide and it differs according to the age of patients. Therefore, age is a good predictor of the cause of pneumonia. Because of the nonspecificity, of cl
## Abstract ## BACKGROUND: Obtaining blood cultures (BCs) for patients hospitalized with community‐acquired‐pneumonia (CAP) has been recommended by experts and used as a measure of quality of care. However, BCs are infrequently positive in these patients and their effect on clinical management has
## Abstract Community‐acquired pneumonia (CAP) is common, and inpatient physicians should be familiar with the most current evidence about and guidelines for CAP management. Our conclusions and recommendations include: __Streptococcus pneumoniae__ is the most common identified cause of CAP requirin