Impact of COVID-19 on urgent care diagnoses and the new AXR metric

Adam L Hersh; Edward A Stenehjem; Nora Fino; Emily S Spivak

doi:10.1017/ash.2024.62

Impact of COVID-19 on urgent care diagnoses and the new AXR metric

Antimicrob Steward Healthc Epidemiol. 2024 Apr 18;4(1):e49. doi: 10.1017/ash.2024.62. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Adam L Hersh¹, Edward A Stenehjem², Nora Fino³, Emily S Spivak^{4

5}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pediatrics, Division of Infectious Diseases, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.
² Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora, CO, USA.
³ Urgent Care, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.
⁴ Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Epidemiology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.
⁵ Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.

Abstract

We examined the antibiotic prescribing rate for respiratory diagnoses (AXR) before and after onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in urgent care clinics. At the onset, AXR declined substantially due to changes in case mix. Using AXR as a stewardship metric requires monitoring of changes in case mix.