Quality of care of hospitalized infective endocarditis patients: Report from a tertiary medical center
OBJECTIVE
There have been no recent studies describing the management and outcomes of patients with infective endocarditis (IE).
PATIENTS AND METHODS
We conducted a retrospective cohort study of adult patients admitted to a tertiary medical center from 2007 to 2011 with a Duke criteria consistent discharge diagnosis of IE. We examined concordance with guideline recommendations. Outcomes included embolic events, inhospital and 1-year mortality, length of stay (LOS) and cardiac surgery. We used descriptive statistics to describe the cohort and Fisher exact and unpaired t tests to compare native valve endocarditis (NVE) with prosthetic valve endocarditis (PVE).
RESULTS
Of 170 patients, definite IE was present in 135 (79.4%) and possible IE in 35 (20.6%); 74.7% had NVE, and 25.3% had PVE. Mean ± standard deviation age was 60.0 ± 17.9 years. Comparing PVE to NVE, patients with PVE were less likely to have embolic events (14.0% vs. 32.3%; P = 0.03), had shorter LOS (median 12.0 days vs. 14.0 days; P = 0.047), but they did not show a statistically significant difference in inhospital mortality (20.9% vs. 12.6%; P = 0.21). Of 170, patients 27.6% (n = 47) underwent valve surgery. Most patients received timely blood cultures and antibiotics. Guideline-recommended consults were underused, with 86.5%, 54.1%, and 47.1% of patients receiving infectious disease, cardiac surgery, and cardiology consultation, respectively. As the number of consultations increased (from 0 to 3), we observed a nonsignificant trend toward reduction in 6-month readmission and 12-month mortality.
CONCLUSION
IE remains a disease with significant morbidity and mortality. There are gaps in the care of IE patients, most notably underuse of specialty consultation. Journal of Hospital Medicine 2017;12:414-420. © 2017 Society of Hospital Medicine
© 2017 Society of Hospital Medicine
Infective endocarditis (IE) affected an estimated 46,800 Americans in 2011, and its incidence is increasing due to greater numbers of invasive procedures and prevalence of IE risk factors.1-3 Despite recent advances in the treatment of IE, morbidity and mortality remain high: in-hospital mortality in IE patients is 15% to 20%, and the 1-year mortality rate is approximately 40%.2,4,5
Poor IE outcomes may be the result of difficulty in diagnosing IE and identifying its optimal treatments. The American Heart Association (AHA), the American College of Cardiology (ACC), and the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) have published guidelines to address these challenges. Recent guidelines recommend a multidisciplinary approach that includes cardiology, cardiac surgery, and infectious disease (ID) specialty involvement in decision-making.5,6
In the absence of published quality measures for IE management, guidelines can be used to evaluate the quality of care of IE. Studies have showed poor concordance with guideline recommendations but did not examine agreement with more recently published guidelines.7,8 Furthermore, few studies have examined the management, outcomes, and quality of care received by IE patients. Therefore, we aimed to describe a modern cohort of patients with IE admitted to a tertiary medical center over a 4-year period. In particular, we aimed to assess quality of care received by this cohort, as measured by concordance with AHA and ACC guidelines to identify gaps in care and spur quality improvement (QI) efforts.
METHODS
Design and Study Population
We conducted a retrospective cohort study of adult IE patients admitted to Baystate Medical Center (BMC), a 716-bed tertiary academic center that covers a population of 800,000 people throughout western New England. We used the International Classification of Diseases (ICD)–Ninth Revision, to identify IE patients discharged with a principal or secondary diagnosis of IE between 2007 and 2011 (codes 421.0, 421.1, 421.9, 424.9, 424.90, and 424.91). Three co-authors confirmed the diagnosis by conducting a review of the electronic health records.
We included only patients who met modified Duke criteria for definite or possible IE.5 Definite IE defines patients with pathological criteria (microorganisms demonstrated by culture or histologic examination or a histologic examination showing active endocarditis); or patients with 2 major criteria (positive blood culture and evidence of endocardial involvement by echocardiogram), 1 major criterion and 3 minor criteria (minor criteria: predisposing heart conditions or intravenous drug (IVD) use, fever, vascular phenomena, immunologic phenomena, and microbiologic evidence that do not meet the major criteria) or 5 minor criteria. Possible IE defines patients with 1 major and 1 minor criterion or 3 minor criteria.5
