Antimicrobial therapy for pneumonia in Pennsylvania long-term care : a spotlight on culture Pennsylvania patient safety advisory Davis, James, author. Anti-Bacterial Agents -- therapeutic use Culture Techniques -- statistics & numerical data Inappropriate Prescribing Long-Term Care Microbial Sensitivity Tests -- statistics & numerical data Nursing Homes Pneumonia -- drug therapy In the United States, pneumonia is responsible for an estimated 60,000 deaths annually of people age greater than or equal to 65 years and is the fifth leading cause of death within this population. Because of the prevalence of pneumonia, antibiotics are widely prescribed and administered in the long-term care (LTC) community. Empiric antibiotic therapy is sometimes used to target the pathogens that commonly cause pneumonia in a specific population, but without confirmatory cultures, antibiotic selection may not be optimal. To gauge the extent of culture-guided antimicrobial therapy for pneumonia in Pennsylvania LTC facilities, Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority analysts queried the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Reporting System database. The percentage of LTC residents who received antibiotics for pneumonia in the absence of culture data ranged from 85.2% to 91.0% across Pennsylvania regions. There is a pressing need to attempt to collect culture data, rather than relying on empiric treatment algorithms, in order to tailor treatment to a specific pathogen as often as clinically possible. [Harrisburg, Pa.] : Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority, September 2015 Pennsylvania. Patient Safety Authority, issuing body. ECRI (Organization), issuing body. Institute for Safe Medication Practices, issuing body. Technical Report Text Illustrations 1 online resource (1 PDF file (pages 116-118)) nlm:nlmuid-101669456-pdf 101669456 http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101669456 English Pennsylvania United States Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY-NC-ND license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0