Observational Study About the Feasibility, Safety and Efficacy of Outpatient Parenteral Antimicrobial Therapy (OPAT)

Some patients require parenteral antibiotic therapy, but are well enough to return home. Outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy (OPAT) was first developed in the USA in the 1970s for patients with cystic fibrosis, before being adopted by other countries. It has been recognised as a useful, cost-effective and safe alternative to inpatient treatment. It is now a standard care in several countries and different national guidelines have been established. There are various models of care for OPAT and most OPAT centres provide hospital-centred nursing programmes or services based on nurses visiting the patient's home. A few centres have also shown that self-administration of intravenous antibiotic therapy is an effective and safe option for selected patients. Furthermore, use of continuous infusion of antibiotics increases the number of feasible treatments. Continuous infusion by pumps of antibiotics with a time-dependent killing mechanism is a practical option which has been described. In Europe, even if many infectious disease specialists feel that OPAT is required, it is still underdeveloped because of lack of funding, lack of leadership and lack of coordination between hospitals and community care.

In the last decades, programs to enhance care delivery on an outpatient basis in order to contain health costs have been developed in Switzerland. However administration of outpatient intravenous antibiotic therapy for patients who require parenteral therapy, but are otherwise fit enough to go home, hasn't been used widely until recently. In December 2013, an outpatient parenteral antibiotic treatment (OPAT) unit was initiated at Lausanne University Hospital with the goal of offering an alternative treatment programme that is equally effective and as safe as inpatient treatment.

The purpose of this study will be to investigate the efficacy, safety and economicity of treatments administered at the new OPAT unit of the University Hospital of Lausanne in the context of the Swiss Health System.