Infectious disease services: a survey from four university hospitals in Germany.
PURPOSE
Involvement of infectious disease (ID) specialists in the care of hospitalized patients with infections through consultation services improves the quality of care and the outcome of patients. This survey aimed to describe activities and utilization of ID consultations at four German tertiary care hospitals.


METHODS
A 1-month (March 2016) retrospective cross-sectional study at four university hospitals (Freiburg, Jena, Cologne and Regensburg) was performed. Only ID consultations with written documentation and bedside patient evaluation were included. Consultations were analyzed with regard to requesting departments, infections, case severity, and diagnostic and therapeutic recommendations.


RESULTS
In the study period, 638 ID consultations were performed in 479 patients-corresponding to 3-4 consultations per 100 inpatient cases. Patients were characterized by a high disease complexity-the mean case mix index in patients with consultation was 10.1 compared to 1.6 for all patients. ID consultations were requested by many different specialties, with approximately half of the requests coming from surgical disciplines. ID consultations resulted in revised diagnoses in 34% of the cases, provided recommendations for additional diagnostic procedures in 66%, and for modifications of antimicrobial regimens in 70% of the cases.


CONCLUSIONS
Infectious disease consultations were requested for patients with severe and complicated diseases and resulted in recommendations that highly impacted the diagnostic work-up and therapeutic management of patients. The results of this survey may help to estimate requirements for establishment of such services in Germany.
['Rieg|Siegbert|S|', 'Hitzenbichler|Florian|F|', 'Hagel|Stefan|S|', 'Suarez|Isabelle|I|', 'Kron|Florian|F|', 'Salzberger|Bernd|B|', 'Pletz|Mathias|M|', 'Kern|Winfried V|WV|', 'Fätkenheuer|Gerd|G|', 'Jung|Norma|N|']
D000368:Aged D003140:Communicable Disease Control D003141:Communicable Diseases D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies D005260:Female D005858:Germany D006785:Hospitals, University D006801:Humans D007297:Inpatients D008297:Male D008875:Middle Aged D012017:Referral and Consultation D012189:Retrospective Studies D013038:Specialization
Quality of care Infectious disease consultation Difficult-to-treat infections Patient management Quality indicators Survival