612. Empowering Patients with Addiction to Self-Administer Parenteral Antibiotics at Home: A Pilot Project
Authors: Hoff Emily , Ashraf Bilal , Smartt Jillian , Marambage Kapila , Bhavan Kavita 
Published: December 2021

Background

Nearly 20% of people in the United States use drugs each year. People who use drugs (PWUD) are predisposed to complex infections that require long term intravenous (IV) antibiotics. A frequent clinical quandary in PWUD is safe administration of extended IV antibiotics. Current standard of care is IV antibiotic administration in skilled nursing facilities. In this system, PWUD frequently do not finish antibiotic therapy, resulting in avoidable complications of untreated infections and increased healthcare utilization. We present a pilot study of ten patients with a history of addiction who required long-term IV antibiotics to evaluate the feasibility of self administered outpatient parenteral antibiotic therapy (S-OPAT) for PWUD.

Methods

Ten patients who had a history of mild addiction and stable housing, social support and transportation were enrolled at Parkland Health and Hospital System to complete S-OPAT. We extracted demographic, drug use, clinical and access to care variables and patients were followed with weekly clinical appointments. Addiction severity was defined using the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) -Modified ASSIST Score. We completed post-intervention surveys to evaluate the impact of the intervention on provider-patient trust.

Results

A total of 10 patients were enrolled in S-OPAT (Table 1). The patients were 48 years old on average, all were male and seven were Hispanic. All patients had stimulant use disorder and no patients had commercial insurance. Treated infections were bone/ joint and skin/soft tissue in origin. All patients completed their antibiotic course, nearly all appointments were attended (96%) and there were no 30-day hospital readmissions (Table 2). More than two-third of patients experienced improvement in addiction severity with progress in multiple psychosocial factors including housing instability, social support and legal problems (Figure 1; Table 2).

Table 1. Demographic, substance use and clinical variables among people who use drugs enrolled in the pilot project for S-OPAT (N=10).

Table 2. Clinical, drug use and psychosocial outcomes among people who use drugs and received S-OPAT (N=10). Addiction severity was defined using the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) -Modified ASSIST Score.

Figure 1.

Progression of addiction severity before and after completion of self-administered outpatient parenteral antibiotic therapy pilot among patients with a history of drug use (N=10). Addiction severity was defined using the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) -Modified ASSIST Score.

Conclusion

We demonstrate that PWUD can successfully complete S-OPAT with simultaneous improvement in addiction severity and psychosocial factors. We hope to create a framework for the patient-centered administration of extended courses of antibiotics for PWUD and to advocate for the expansion of individualized approaches to extended courses of IV antibiotics for PWUD.

Disclosures

All Authors: No reported disclosures