Antibiotic prescribing for acute respiratory infections during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic: Patterns in a nationwide telehealth service provider

Jeffrey A Linder; Stephen D Persell; Marcella A Kelley; Mark Friedberg; Noah J Goldstein; Tara K Knight; Katrina M Kaiser; Jason N Doctor; Wendy J Mack; Jason Tibbels; Bridget McCabe; Steve Haenchen; Daniella Meeker

doi:10.1017/ice.2023.292

Antibiotic prescribing for acute respiratory infections during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic: Patterns in a nationwide telehealth service provider

Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol. 2024 Jun;45(6):777-780. doi: 10.1017/ice.2023.292. Epub 2024 Feb 8.

Authors

Jeffrey A Linder^{1

2}, Stephen D Persell^{1

2}, Marcella A Kelley^{3

4}, Mark Friedberg⁵, Noah J Goldstein⁶, Tara K Knight³, Katrina M Kaiser³, Jason N Doctor³, Wendy J Mack⁷, Jason Tibbels⁸, Bridget McCabe⁸, Steve Haenchen⁸, Daniella Meeker⁹

Affiliations

¹ Division of General Internal Medicine, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois.
² Center for Primary Care Innovation, Institute for Public Health, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois.
³ Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California.
⁴ School of Pharmacy, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California.
⁵ Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Boston, Massachusetts.
⁶ Anderson School of Management, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California.
⁷ Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California.
⁸ Teladoc Health, Inc, Purchase, New York.
⁹ Yale School of Medicine, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.

Abstract

We examined 3,046,538 acute respiratory infection (ARI) encounters with 6,103 national telehealth physicians from January 2019 to October 2021. The antibiotic prescribing rates were 44% for all ARIs; 46% were antibiotic appropriate; 65% were potentially appropriate; 19% resulted from inappropriate diagnoses; and 10% were related to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) diagnosis.

MeSH terms

Acute Disease
Adolescent
Adult
Aged
Anti-Bacterial Agents* / therapeutic use
COVID-19* / epidemiology
Drug Prescriptions / statistics & numerical data
Female
Humans
Inappropriate Prescribing / statistics & numerical data
Male
Middle Aged
Practice Patterns, Physicians'* / statistics & numerical data
Respiratory Tract Infections* / drug therapy
SARS-CoV-2
Telemedicine*
United States / epidemiology
Young Adult